The modern enterprise is complex, and during the everyday conduct of your business that complexity deposits important marketplace information all over the place. Valuable customer and market data is coming in from across many digital and traditional channels.
It's often kept in numerous transactional stores. But data has tremendous potential and every business is obligated to manage its marketplace knowledge and securely preserve the value of the organization's key information. Data is derived from everyday interactions and commerce, but its power comes from its re-use in the next process, whether that is marketing, selling, servicing, or making strategic decisions. To harness this power, you need to rationalize all information around each marketplace participant, the customer, prospect or partner. This data must be coalesced and unified and prepared for re-use.
What sometimes gets in the way is that many IT and executives think they already have a customer data repository in the form of a traditional data warehouse. You would be tempted to think a traditional DW or data mart can serve as a store of re-usable knowledge for customer insights and marketing services. In most cases, it simply is not tooled that way. Instead, your business should be using a CDP--Customer Data Platform like Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights. The differences between a traditional DW and a modern CDP are significant.
Below is a chart showing the many ways a data warehouse (DW) is different from a customer data platform (CDP). Use this comparison as a checklist to determine if your DW is CDP-enabled. This chart and the many resources at Ascendant Group can help you achieve better CRM from better customer data and market analysis.
