Customer data management, data syndication and secure access

The evolution of Master Data Management (MDM) and customer MDM (CMDM) in particular, has brought to light the significance of centralized data security, access controls, and metadata interoperability.

Enterprises often grapple with data management issues arising from the decentralized nature of their applications and systems. Stovepipe applications, with their isolated data silos and inconsistent access controls, can create a labyrinthine of complexities. The challenge becomes more pronounced when determining who can access or modify specific data and exercise authorized actions.

The need for centralized enterprise data access controls becomes obvious as a requirement in order to mitigate these issues. A dedicated enterprise data security and visibility system can efficiently manage and enforce data access permissions, eliminating redundancies that stem from multiple applications trying to govern the same aspect of data access. This not only streamlines customer master data governance but also enhances security and compliance efforts, as it becomes easier to manage and audit data access to customer records across the entire organization.

Centralized Customer Master Data Management with Pretectum CMDM
Centralized Customer Master Data Management with Pretectum CMDM

As the technology landscape continues to expand, the integration of various systems and technologies becomes imperative. Customer MDM technologies are no exception to this trend. They need to seamlessly interact with external authorities for authentication and authorization purposes. This integration enables the CMDM system to leverage the existing authorization, eligibility, and security rules of external systems, ensuring a cohesive approach to data security.

An open CMDM product seamlessly exchanges data with a central enterprise-wide data security and visibility product and transforms data security practices. Such an approach not only bolsters the overall quality and resilience of data security and visibility solutions but also contributes to cost reduction. When you decouple data security and access controls from individual applications, the organizations achieve better consistency and control all the while minimizing duplication of effort.

Data security is paramount, but shouldn’t impair the effectiveness of customer master data management practice which extends beyond ensuring data privacy and unauthorized access. In the modern enterprise landscape, data is spread across a myriad of applications, each with its own unique metadata structure and terminologies. This poses a significant challenge in achieving a unified understanding of the same data across applications and systems.

Enter metadata interoperability. Metadata interoperability for customer master data revolves around creating an environment where metadata seamlessly interacts and flows across diverse applications and systems within the data ecosystem. This enables a holistic view of customer data, enhancing the quality and usability of that information across the organization.

A screenshot of schema definition within the Pretectum CMDM that shows how data tagging with metadata can provide an alternative and unifying view of record definition

A robust metadata interoperability strategy calls for standardizing the data models, terminologies, and ontologies that will be leveraged to bridge the gap between the disparate systems. This fosters a shared understanding of data and accelerates decision-making processes, as employees become able to confidently navigate and comprehend customer data regardless of its source and labeling.

The evolution of expectations from Customer Master Data Management systems has benefited from the construction of transformative capabilities that have redefined data management paradigms. Centralized data security and visibility systems are emerging as a necessity to combat the challenges (and risks) posed by stovepipe applications. These systems streamline access controls, enhance compliance efforts, and optimize data governance.

CMDM’s ability to collaborate with external authorities is crucial for a cohesive and integrated approach to data security. By leveraging existing authorization and security rules, organizations can establish a consistent and robust security framework that transcends individual applications.

Moreover, the emphasis on metadata interoperability introduces a new dimension to CMDM’s role. Organizations can no longer afford to operate in silos; a unified understanding of data is pivotal for informed decision-making. Metadata interoperability bridges the gap between applications and systems, fostering a shared data understanding that enhances efficiency and productivity.

As enterprises grapple with an ever-expanding data landscape, the evolution of CMDM is poised to play a central role in shaping data security practices and promoting seamless data interoperability. By embracing these disruptive trends, organizations can navigate the complexities of modern data management with confidence, empowering them to unlock the true potential of their customer master data assets.

Call Centres and Customer Data Management

happy call center agents looking at camera

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a make-or-break experience for call centres.

Not only was there an increase in calls but there was also a significant increase in the rate of difficult calls and the need to escalate them. That’s at least according to a 2020 study by Harvard Business Review. Difficult calls increased by 50% overall.

Customer service employees, therefore, had to deal with more calls and more complexity in the calls and were further challenged with having to go into under-manned call centres due to social distancing measures or having to work from home too.

NBC and Telemundo survey respondents suggested that work conditions had worsened during the pandemic and more than half of callers were unable to resolve their issues.

Several issues were identified in this article as particularly problematic:

  • Protracted Call Wait Times
  • Continued WFH circumstances
  • Call centre agent recruitment and retention
  • Low customer satisfaction

Solutions

There is no single bullet that will solve all of these issues but it can certainly be argued that data probably represents one of the key aspects of how call centres engage with customers that could help.

Companies that rely on call centres for customer interaction have the opportunity to consider how they deal with customer master data in particular and how that can be aligned and integrated with call centre operations.

In the current era, a call centre that can’t identify, queue and prioritize a customer based on CLI is missing a trick in prioritizing higher-value or even known customers. To do that of course requires the orchestration of integration of the CLI with the CRM or CIC software and in all likelihood a customer MDM (Master Data Management) system like the Pretectum CMDM. Of course, there is always the risk that the number from which the caller is dialling is unknown or blocked but surely when the number is known or identified, there is value in leveraging that information in queue management.

WFH (Work from Home) is quite possibly the new normal. We’ve seen the progressive transition to telework wax and wane over the past quarter-century as networking and telecommunications infrastructure has improved but these days most people who would be office-bound or work in a call centre; likely have fairly good broadband access where they live and even the costs of teleworking equipment now make this a much more affordable option than it was in the past.

Call centre-heavy businesses will have their eye on the ball here and be looking to enhance and improve the ability of their staff to work from home and the technology and infrastructure shouldn’t be a hindrance in achieving this.

Recruitment and staff attrition is a thorny subject because some individuals thrive on the social interaction associated with actually working in an office and might not cope as well in WFH-from-home circumstances.

However, if your business has coordinated the elements of WFH and yet allows hybrid working approaches say where those who really want to divorce home life from work life can, then it becomes possible for staff to still achieve their top-line work objectives and still have a work-life balance that they feel is acceptable. Give them access to the right levels of data that give them the feeling that they are empowered to actually help customers, and retention becomes less of an issue because staff are likely to appreciate the ability to work where they want in the circumstances that they prefer.

Finally, if you manage to orchestrate the best implementation approach for call queuing; provide staff with all the necessary customer data via your MDM integration with CIC and CRM.

Integration helps them be the best that they can be, in their jobs and then augment their lifestyle with the ability to work where and how they prefer it is likely that preferred existing and new customers won’t have to wait so long to have their calls answered; will be responded to by staff with some existing knowledge and insight about the customer and are likely to help solve issues faster and with improved success rates.

Learn how you can leverage the pretectum CMDM approach to integration by contacting us for more information.

Data Integration Matters

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Considering Data Integration Best Practices

Data integration is the process of retrieving and combining heterogeneous data from different source systems.

The primary goal of data integration is to combine data from a variety of sources in a way that can produce meaningful and valuable information for business reporting and data analysis needs.

Nowadays, data integration involves much more than retrieving and combining processes โ€“ it brings together a wide range of tools, techniques, and methods supporting real-time integration.

Today powerful data integration tools can easily transform unstructured data and of course work with data, and deliver it to any system including pushing and pulling data from the Pretectum CMDM for Customer Master Data Management.

For integration to be effective there are some important aspects to keep in mind.

Keeping integration front and center as a strategy for connecting disparate sources and systems.

Use contemporary APIs and integration methods whenever possible that use contemporary technology that is often more secure and more robust.

Pretectum Approaches to Customer MDM
Pretectum supports the four main approaches to Customer MDM – CoExistent, Centralized, Consolidated, and registry

Leverage integration to remove organizational silos that are often associated with data and systems, this is particularly important if you have a cross-functional need for specific data to be consistent.

Make use of an integration “standards” based approach to evaluating which and what sources to connect to one another

Start small and then move to more ambitious and more elaborate integrations once your initial tests and experiments prove fruitful, successful, reliable, and valuable.

Don’t assume that integration will resolve organizational issues, integration may help with the systems and data but change management often needs bigger effort and investment to make the most benefit to the organization

Keeping your eye on the ball of the final goal will guide your intentions and thinking around what you can afford and what you need to focus on. Focus on what matters.

Small possibly insignificant and seemingly trivial items may yield a far greater reward in terms of integration than you may have initially thought.

To learn more about how Pretectum can be used as a hub for your customer master data and syndicate the customer to other systems, contact us for details.