Taking full control
- Article 6 of 6
- Database Marketing, September 2006
Enthusiasm for customer data integration and master data management has finally reached the boardroom. Robert Buckley discusses whether this is good or bad news for marketing's own customer data agenda.
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Marketing will therefore have to be sure that the needs of other departments are kept in mind when using data – and vice versa. Much of this can be done, however, by the unit establishing ground rules on how to deal with CDI data and how to use external datasets. Indeed, the unit may decide that much of this work need be done by someone other than marketing, but to marketing’s specifications, just to avoid any possible problems.
While marketing may indeed lose some control over how the data is cleaned and used within the organisation, it might end up missing that responsibility as much as it misses the responsibility of cleaning the mugs at the end of the day after the duty’s been passed to a new cleaning firm.
Of course, things can always go wrong. Projects can fall apart when sponsors leave. Technology can fail to live up to vendors’ promises or the budget might not be there to make it work properly. People can refuse to adapt to the new systems, spreading poor data to every department. SmartFocus’s Marjot says that marketing has to be aware of this from the outset, plan accordingly and make everyone be aware of the possibility.
“You need to recognise the possibilities of failure exists,” he says. “What if IT’s not ready when it says it’s going to be ready, for instance? You need to have plan B and you need to tell IT you have plan B – or ask them to come up with it themselves. That’s a lot more candid than most would be historically, but there’s no way to avoid human nature.”
As with data warehousing, CRM and single views before it, CDI offers much to the organisation that can implement it correctly. Although there is definitely an upswing in popularity, that doesn’t mean there’s going to be any greater chance of success than with its predecessors unless lessons are learnt. If they are, marketing will gain from CDI, particularly if takes the lead and ensures its interests are well represented – and that others’ aren’t given a higher priority.
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