Customer Data Integration: Reaching a Single Version of the Truth

GETTING CDI RIGHT

Like so many other IT projects, the success of CDI depends in large part on setting the right expectations and being realistic about what success means. There are several basic rules to follow to ensure that your CDI project starts out on the right foot:

• Answer the question, “Why should we ... ?” Is there consensus about the need for CDI? Is CDI really the best answer to the business problem? We’ve offered a host of different business drivers for CDI in this book, but often a company has already slated its existing technologies to address them. There may be a legitimate business issue of accessing timely and accurate customer detail, but that doesn’t mean that another technology or platform can’t deliver.

• Avoid overpromising. Lofty assurances of impossible functional gymnastics and data that’s 100 percent clean won’t cut the mustard long term if CDI is to stay relevant and useful.

• Be deliberate about the build-versus-buy decision. Homegrown systems like the one at Royal Bank of Canada often meet the specific needs of the business more quickly and directly than an off-the-shelf package. Just make sure that the decision to build is founded on research and not the personal ambitions of smart programmers looking for a fun experiment. (When Royal Bank of Canada developed its customer registry, there were no immediate CDI solutions on the market.) Likewise, a buy decision made too quickly could jeopardize the delivery of CDI functionality critical to business ...