Home Agenda & Programmes Mastermind Keynotes One-on-Ones Hotel & Travel Partners ITxpo Brochure (PDF) Documentation Florence, Italy 10-12 March 2003 San Diego, CA, USA 23-27 March 2003 Orlando, FL, USA 19-24 October 2003 Past Symposium/ITxpo Sydney, Australia 12-15 November 2002 Cannes, France 4-7 November 2002 Tokyo, Japan 23-25 October 2002 Orlando, FL, USA 6-11 October 2002 Johannesburg, South Africa 4-7 August 2002 San Diego, CA, USA 29 April - 2 May 2002 Florence, Italy 8-10 April 2002		Gartner Vice President, John Radcliffe Successful CRM Management Requires High-Quality Data Wednesday, 6 November 2002 Managing customer information is one of the eight building blocks of successful customer relationship management. And to get the most out of their interactions with customers, enterprises need to master the “blood supply” of CRM analytics and operations. Speaking at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Cannes, France on Tuesday, Gartner vice president John Radcliffe outlined that blood supply - the three basics of information for CRM: 1. Maintain accurate, relevant and legal data about customers Looking after the raw data is boring and unglamorous, he said, until “the link with money is made.” As an example of the cost of poor data quality he cited an Australian company which relied on stored data about a unit of measure and tried to deliver two containers bigger than a customer’s entire warehouse. Achieving quality data, Radcliffe warned, is as much a cultural as a technical issue. Data quality decays rapidly and enterprises should follow a methodology that includes regular measurement of data quality with goals for improvement and deployment of process improvements and technology. 2. Store the data in federated databases to give a multi-channel customer view Storing customer data into a single, cosmic database may seem to be the ideal solution. But Radcliffe said that “it is unlikely to be feasible for most large enterprises due to the diversity of their applications portfolios and associated databases.” Instead, he suggested integration in a pragmatic fashion using middleware linking a federation of customer databases. 3. Apply appropriate analytic tools to gain insight into customers Basic data is not enough for analyzing customer information. Enterprises need three kinds of data: Descriptive: Contact details and demographic or business classification data Behavioral: Patterns of purchasing and lifestyle Contextual: Level of satisfaction, attitudes and life events All this data needs to be put together through customer data integration (CDI) although it will be hard to calculate the return on this activity as it will involve many soft metrics. Tools for analyzing the data are available and a multivendor strategy may be necessary. And enterprises will have to choose the most appropriate approach for CRM analytics. The approaches include business intelligence and data mining tools, the embedded capabilities in point CRM systems and a broad CRM analytics application suite. As the tools provide insight into customers, enterprises should be using the insight to optimize its interactions with customers on an ongoing basis, leveraging all interactions to maximize their value to the enterprise. Jonathan Green-Armytage Gartner Staff Back to Overview Focusing the Lessons of Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2002 Mastermind Keynote: Microsoft Puts Costs High on Agenda Mastermind Keynote: The Powerful Cocktail of Real-Time Enterprise More... New Tablet PCs Draw Crowds at ITxpo New Architectures for a New World of Connected Business Choosing Mobile Applications The Powerhouse Vendors: Their Strategies and Challenges Successful CRM Management Requires High-Quality Data New Attitudes Needed to Achieve Successful Sourcing More... Gartner Says Consolidation to Continue Across the European IT Industry in 2003 Gartner Says New Economy gives way to ‘Now Economy’ and the Real Time Enterprise More...

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