Jill Dyché, an expert on Customer Data Integration, was asked about the most common mistakes and obstacles when organizations want to implement CDI. For the complete article please follow this link. She came up with 7 very usefull tips:
1) Anticipate the saboteurs. With CDI there will be people in your organization claiming that “we already do that with our data warehouse/ODS/CRM system/toothpicks-and-glue.” Anticipate their arguments and educate them, offering deliberate examples of why they’re full of it. Nicely, of course.
2) Articulate more than one business problem that CDI can solve. You want to position your CDI effort as an ongoing program that can enable different business needs. If you position CDI as a one-trick pony (for instance, it can handle identity resolution), you’ll only be able to ride that horse for so long…
3) Know your functional requirements. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly companies want to enlist vendors. “We’ve gotten everyone in a room and we know what we need,” they explain as they cherry-pick brochures off of vendor websites and schedule proofs of concept (POC). Not so fast! At best, this is a well-intentioned attempt to fill in the blanks by talking to smart vendors. At worst, it’s tire-kicking in a vacuum. Unlike with business intelligence (BI), master data management (MDM) requires a huge and measured focus on functional requirements. Until you have your list in hand, you won’t be able to give the vendors what they need to deliver the goods.
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