In a party scenario, the statement ”The More the Merrier“ is true provided you are a good host, else, do not even think about making an attempt to invite a large group of people. Or, be prepared for a terrible disaster.

I am impressed by a few hosts who have the knack to keep disparate group of individuals united and have fun at the same time, I have always wondered what it takes to be like that. I personally am incapable of handling large disparate groups of individuals in a party.

The objective of this post is Analytical CRM or Marketing initiatives have been gradually moving from silos or a department focused approach towards truly enterprise-wide initiatives. In such situations, it is imperative that every touch-point through with a customer can interact with the enterprise and the product applications are plated together, importantly well! If I were to represent the aforesaid analogy in technical terms, I am talking about Integration.

It is imperative the solution an organization is evaluating is capable of integrating with disparate data sources and systems, and in today’s scenario a SOA ready/capable application.

Large enterprises that are potential users of Analytical CRM solutions are in Consolidation phase these days and I would think this trend would continue for a few years, at least in developing countries. So, the solution that is being evaluated should have the capability to integrate with a host of systems inhouse and from organizations that would be merged or acquired by your enterprise. I have come across situations, where two large companies had merged and integrating the customers itself was a humungous task.

Without being ready for true-integration, analytical CRM initiatives would end up ineffective in managing customer communication strategies, contact history management, unnoticed but wasted marketing funds and eventually besmirched brand reputation amongst customers.

I have heard horror stories of a same customer getting two communications on a same product with two different offers through different channels from same organization – This is a classic example of what improper data/system integration would lead to after investing so much of time and many on an Analytical CRM Solution. It is important to note, solutions that are primarily designed to handle a piece of the overall marketing automation puzzle are prone and succumb to such disasters.

Enterprises planning to embrace Analytical approach in marketing, must ensure the identified and short-listed solutions’ capability to integrate with various data sources and applications amonst other key parameters for evaluation thus ensure not to fall for a temporary solution which will appear good for myopic eyes but turn you (customer)vision impaired in future.