Know a good customer profile when you see it?

A visit to the London Retail Fraud 2010 conference this week proved to be very thought provoking, not least the workshop on UK data sharing and the clear dependency the whole idea of shared information has on Master Data Management.

Having considered in previous posts the difficulties of creating an accurate single view of client data across a large company enterprise, I find the thought of creating an accurate client view across the whole FS&I industry a difficult one to reconcile.

From a client point of view I would worry about the integrity of the data, and the potential for mistaken identity to affect legitimate claims.

From a shareholder's perspective, I wonder if the investment made by FS&I companies in schemes like Cue, can be justified on grounds of value and the return on investment.

In my mind, most FS&I companies would get a better return by focusing on their own internal governance and an investment in the latest MDM and data analytics technologies. 

It must be better to know your own customers, and understand what a good customer profile looks like for your own business model at the front end than to rely on others to identify your bad eggs at the claims stage?

Acquisitions, Mergers and Asset Stripping may cause the death of CRM?

The Financial Services and Insurance sector remains in a continued state of flux.  Over the last 20 years acquisitions and mergers, in particular the emergence of Bank Assurers has made the job of creating  a single customer view across an FS&I enterprise almost impossible to attain, at least for any length of time!.  

In 2010, we now face a different set of problems, with the prospect of the newly nationalised corporations being split up and asset stripped by a cash strapped government. The predicted sell off is likely to happen at a pace if the Conservatives form the next administration!

Counter this by the opportunities for sound companies to increase market share by acquiring smaller companies that can no longer satisfy the stricter financial solvency rules.   Witness the mergers occurring in the building society sector earlier this month

The traditional methods of creating the single customer view, involves merging systems and creating centralised CRM based solutions using on the same unlikely data quality standards highlighted in my last post.   It is not surprising then, that because of this continual churning, most of these “projects” either fail or are never-ending.

It is unlikely that the ebbs and flows of market capitalism will ever stop or slow down, so FS&I companies will have to find an alternative to the traditional CRM IT solutions to deal with the continuing expansion and contractions of a typical enterprise.

I did note this month, that one of the leading MDM products designed to solve this long standing problem [Initiate Systems] is, itself, in the process of being acquired by a larger company, IBM no less.  Is this a sign that, even the CRM king that is IBM, have decided a new approach is now needed?