Imagine you are running one of the leading enterprises (in your area of business context) and tomorrow one of the prospects who enter your premises happened to be Japanese. If you are interested in winning him as your customers (assuming he has some requirement), you might consider bowing down to welcome him and engage in a dialogue.
The reason for you to bow down to welcome him/her has happened basis what you know about the customer – Essentially, you had some information that can be used to serve your customer well.

Getting back to the context, I thought of writing this post today while reading an article from Peppers & Rogers on value of Data for Customer Management – As an enterprise, if you want to be a customer-centric organization, it cannot be done without understanding your customer basis the data you have about them, customer data is an inevitable element if you want to be a truly Customer-Centric Enterprise.

I wrote on the value of a functionality and usability rich solution a couple of months ago and its associated value for business. Going in-sync with that post, being able to manage data effectively, which is an underlying element, is one of the functionality I was referring to. Under the realms of customer management, today there are dime-a-dozen solutions available out there in the market – This means, there is good likelihood to get lost amidst of all these solutions and can potentially make incorrect decisions.

It is essential you don’t get floored by one (or) some aspect/s of the offering, which might probably help you meet one of your short-term goal. But surely not going to help you the way it should on a long-term basis.

This view of mine was proven right again by one of the well known managers in the Indian banking industry. In a conversation, he mentioned how their investment in one of the slick-looking but functionally-weak (weak, as per their requirement) customer management solution is not aiding them in meeting some critical objectives. He mentioned, the myriad of extra workarounds they have to do to make the solution deliver, which again is not very efficient.

Before making up your mind on investing in a particular solution, spend adequate time in understanding what are all available in the market for Effective Customer Management. Try to look for solutions  that would aid you in acheiving your short-term goals without losing focus on long-term objectives – Basis this, weigh the Pros and Cons without any bias and then make an informed decision.