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Good data governance gives firms an edge over competitors, US academic avers

15th April 2016

By: Schalk Burger

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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Good governance practices and manage-ment of data regarding customer information and interactions to improve customer experience are increasingly being seen as a competitive advantage, says University of Arkansas Little Rock department of information science academic Professor John R Talburt.

The use of master data management for products and customer records is mature, but these practices do not yet fully extend to companies’ communications and customer preferences. Management of these can, therefore, be used to drive the evolution of marketing and sales and represents an opportunity for companies.

“Using master data management practices and principles in the communications and marketing portions of a business will provide smarter business intelligence and customer segmentation. The objective is to have a one-on-one dialogue with the customer,” he says.

Many companies still fail to manage cus-tomer preferences across all their marketing and communication channels. This means that companies are not honouring their commitments to customers to contact them with relevant information as often as agreed, which can also result in breaches of communications regulations.

Typically, various lines of a business will use the same identifying information for customers, but each will contact the customer individually with the communications and choices not being shared with the other lines of business.

US data management company Black Oak Analytics – for which Talburt is chief scientist – and South Africa-based data management multinational Pilog have developed systems to bring communications and real-time customer information within the ambit of corporate data governance practices.

“According to the Aberdeen Research Group, companies use an average of nine channels to interact with customers. “These must be managed according to their data governance and enterprise policies to build the trust of customers and automate compliance across all nine channels,” highlights Tallburt.

Communications master data is used to extend management to these channels, and each line of business must refer to this master data prior to communication to determine whether communications meet the preferences of customers.

Pilog and Black Oak Analytics are conducting a proof of concept for communications data management, specifically for large organisations, where it is often difficult to adhere to data quality and management rules, says Pilog Group chief technology officer Wynand Nortje.

A key barrier was the amount of different data types, references and abbreviations that had to be defined and captured within a data management dictionary. The different types must be defined to ensure that the data is handled according to quality and management standards.

“We have two main solutions for centralised communications data management, which conform with ISO 8000 standards on data quality, specifically with regard to syntax, semantic elements and conformance requirements.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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