Why are we still struggling with data?

The quest for the complete and dynamic 'Single customer view has been a joint crusade for both IT and marketing departments around the world for years--yet, few have managed to achieve it. There are three primary factors contributing to this problem:

1. Lack of ownership of data quality issues across the organisation

2. Inherent problems with business processes, contributing further to data issues

3. Unwillingness to invest in long-term technology solutions around data

Comment:

Whilst businesses may have put in place the systems and strategies to give them their sought-after'single view', the quality of their data is the fundamental weakness. Duplication of records, inaccuracies and gaps in information are common problems which mean the organisation is not getting full value from its investment The research shows that revenue generation from cross-sell, up-sell and so on, is the single factor organisations cite as the reason for changing their insight capability.

Companies winch want to drive up revenue, need to fix these problems now." A fundamental issue is the lack of ownership of data quality issues, with solutions not being effectively sponsored within the organisations. Data quality issues can originate and manifest themselves across numerous business operations, from marketing to the contact centre. Before an organisation can progress with process improvements or technology enhancements, there needs to be some ownership and championing on the way forward. Traditionally, this has fallen to the IT function although, more recently, CRM decision makers have adopted this role.

The absence of a robust underlying process to support staff in the delivery of customer insight across an organisation can corrupt data and reduce the clarity of the 'single view. For instance, failure by employees to record each customer contact--such as conversations with call centre agents--is a prime example of how, in practice, inadequate implementation can be a major set back. The final piece of the problem is a by-product of the economic downturn. It's lack of investment in long-term, robust technology. A lot of businesses have been sweating their assets--trying to make what they've got work for them--and there's good business sense in this. Ultimately, however, there's going to have to be approval for bigger technology spends to bridge that final gap and get to where we all want to be--profiting from the single customer view.'