Customer Data Integration: Reaching a Single Version of the Truth

DATA INTEGRATION VIA CDI

Customer data integration vastly simplifies the integration functionality necessary to support movement of data between systems. Exhibit 7.3 illustrates a simple CDI architecture. There are four source systems providing data to the CDI hub: service, billing, sales order, and loyalty. There are three client applications using the CDI hub for customer data integration: campaign management, customer support, and sales force automation (SFA).

In a real-life scenario, when a customer calls into the call center to request information about a recent order, the customer support representative retrieves the customer’s order history from the customer support system.

EXHIBIT 7.3 Seven Interfaces Connecting Seven Systems

Behind the scenes, the customer support system submits details to the CDI hub to identify the customer. The CDI hub interrogates the information and returns the customer ID details that match the customer support system’s request.

In order to review the necessary concepts associated with developing a CDI architecture, let’s start with a simple example showing one source system and one CDI client.

An Architectural Start

Exhibit 7.4 illustrates a simple environment comprised of three components: (1) the source system, (2) the CDI hub, and (3) the client application.

The source system is an operational system that contains detailed customer ...