CMDM - Customer Master Data Management
Establish enterprise-wide master data management for customer data
CMDM is a discipline that ensures the quality of customer data. All systems and contact points where customer data is generated or required are taken into account. The goal of CMDM is to create a “golden customer record”, i.e. a unique, up-to-date, complete and correct data record for each customer. It enables companies to better understand their customers, increase customer loyalty and satisfaction, and improve data quality and security.
CMDM stands for Customer Master Data Management and is an enterprise-wide discipline.
CMDM ensures an enterprise-wide "golden customer record" so that every touchpoint always has consistent access to the customer record.
CMDM systems generate customer master data by collecting new customer data at all relevant touchpoints, cleansing it, eliminating duplicates, enriching it, and finally delivering it back to the relevant systems and touchpoints.
Benefits of customer master data management
Customer Master Data Management is an enterprise-wide discipline that encompasses all systems and touchpoints where customer data is created or required. From trade show events where a business card is handed out to the customer, to the online store where the customer has created a new account and placed an order.
The generic CMDM process is described in the following 4 phases:
The generic CMDM process is described in the following 4 phases:
- Ingest customer data into the CMDM system: All systems that hold customer data send new or changed customer data to the central CMDM system.
- Cleanse customer data: In a series of steps and based on defined rules, the customer data provided is compared to existing records. This allows duplicates to be identified and eliminated immediately. Validate, match, and merge existing records with new records.
- Enrich and enhance customer data: Customer data is enriched from other internal and external data sources (e.g., address databases such as Dun & Bradstreet) to create and maintain a complete customer data profile.
- Distribute customer data to relevant touchpoints: The final step is to distribute the golden customer record back to relevant systems and touchpoints to provide consistent and complete customer data for the prevailing use cases.
To deliver an end-to-end customer experience along the customer journey, companies must be able to recognize the customer at every touchpoint and selectively display the data they have already gathered.
From a customer’s perspective nothing is more frustrating than having to enter additional, unnecessary data when the company already has contact or address information from previous transactions. The often claimed “360-degree view of the customer” already get’s out of reach when it comes to maintaining clear customer master data. Only a technology-enabled, enterprise-wide MDM approach can create the conditions for real customer centricity.
CMDM provides a holistic view of the customer. Therefore, it is necessary to include all systems, processes, and organizational units in which customer data is collected, processed, and stored.
Only by consolidating data from across the enterprise and multiple source systems can you create the “golden record” of customer data – a view of the customer record that captures all connected systems and touchpoints.
CMDM systems eliminate duplicates and enrich customer records to create accurate, up-to-date records that are ready-to-use for multiple business purposes. Sales, service, marketing, and other organizational units that regularly collect and use customer data benefit from the ability to quickly find the correct information. High search costs and tedious identification of the “most current” record are finally over. Customer-related processes, such as marketing communications, creating offers or invoicing are achieved faster and smoother with customer master data management.
Regulatory requirements and international legislation related to customer data (e.g. GDPR) demand efficient and secure master data processes in every company. Without IT support and an end-to-end approach to customer master data the management and responsible MDM teams often struggle to meet high regulatory requirements. The consequences can be high fines and loss of reputation for the company.
Customer Master Data Management ensures that sensitive customer data only gets transfered to authorized processes, systems, and stakeholders, and that unauthorized individuals are denied access.
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Your journey to Customer Master Data Management
Status-quo analysis of your current customer data situation
We analyze the current situation in your company and inspect all existing systems, communication channels, processes and responsibilities where customer data is created, stored or used. During our comprehensive and sophisticated analysis, we uncover weaknesses and potential for improvement and formulate recommendations for action that will benefit your customer data management.
Requirements engineering for your future Customer Master Data Management
Get an overview of your individual requirements for Customer Master Data Management. In requirements management, we consider not only functional but also process-related, organizational and strategic factors with reference to the discipline. All requirements are recorded in comprehensive documentation so that a well-founded software selection for CMDM can be executed in the next step.
100% independent and neutral selection of your new CMDM system
Our USP: Xtentio is 100% independent of software vendors and integrators, giving you a completely neutral view of the CMDM vendor market. We accompany you in a structured way through the entire software selection process: from initialization, through requirements management, the creation of a vendor longlist, a vendor shortlist, vendor presentations, to price and contract negotiations.
Implementation and rollout of your new CMDM system
As good as the project manager working for the software vendor or integrator may be, he is always subject to the economic interests of his company. A full-time project manager on the customer side is often not available or there is a lack of project management skills, technical competence or previous experience in the area of product information management.
As experienced CMDM consultants and certified project managers, we manage your CMDM implementation project and secure the magic triangle of time, cost and quality at every stage of the project.
Continuous securing of data quality
Managing large volumes of customer data requires a variety of roles to perform tasks such as quality assurance, ongoing data maintenance, and data migration. Our Product Data Services teams are here to support you as an extended workbench, handling day-to-day customer data maintenance and managing quality assurance initiatives.
Frequently Asked Questions
CMDM stands for Customer Master Data Management. It refers to the management and integration of customer data from multiple sources to create a consistent, accurate, and up-to-date customer record.
The difference between CMDM and CRM is that CMDM focuses on managing customer data, while CRM focuses on customer relationships and interactions. CMDM deals with data cleansing and maintenance, while CRM provides software solutions to track and improve customer interactions. Both play an important role in customer management, but with different focuses.
The goal of CMDM is to create a "golden customer record"-a unique, up-to-date, complete, and accurate record for each customer. This enables companies to better understand their customers, increase customer loyalty and satisfaction, and improve data quality and security.
CMDM improves data quality by collecting customer data from all relevant touchpoints, cleansing it, removing duplicates, enriching it, and returning it to the relevant systems and touchpoints. This ensures a consistent customer record at every touchpoint, every time.
By creating a unified customer data set and improving data quality, CMDM enables companies to better understand their customers and deliver personalized services and offerings.
You can learn more about CMDM by downloading our free whitepaper. In addition to the white paper, we offer an as-is analysis of your current customer data situation, as well as assistance with requirements gathering, selection of a suitable CMDM system, and implementation of the system.