Customer Data Integration: Reaching a Single Version of the Truth

CHAPTER 7

Making Customer Data Integration Work

Customer data integration (CDI) involves an often complex combination of processing and technology. The obvious justification of CDI at most companies is to provide a consistent way of accessing customer details. Via CDI, these details are complete, integrated, and clean, thus freeing the applications to focus on their core functions. Of course, the information technology (IT) infrastructure around CDI will vary depending on the specific business needs, the functional requirements, and the actual technologies used.

This chapter examines how CDI technology works, reviewing the processing features typically associated with CDI hubs. We then relate that functionality to an overall systems architecture that delivers integrated customer data to your company’s other applications and systems. The aim is to prepare you to implement CDI as part of your overall enterprise architecture while staying mindful of the capabilities specific to your CDI requirements. Thus armed, you can take a deliberate look at your company’s IT infrastructure and know how CDI fits.