Articles in this design series:
- 1 - Introduction
- 2 - High-Level Design
- 3 - Trusted Data Products
- 4 - Gold Data Products
- 5 - Benefits & Drawbacks
CRM
While it's primarily synonymous with tools and systems, most companies don't integrate their CRMs with the rest of their systems. A customer can be created in multiple places, and then there's an effort to move those customers to the central CRM.
However, by utilising the Lake before the data is landed into any CRM system, you can create a more centralised and reusable data storage that would feed into your CRM and be referenced by other systems.
Think of it like this: You're mastering your customer data in a single database, validating it, and merging similar customers before that data lands into your CRM and pollutes it. The changes you make in your CRM can be fed back to this source, combined with other changes, and then returned to your CRM. Most Master Data Management (MDM) tools have this capability, and it can help you singularise multiple copies of the same customer, allowing you to target customers more efficiently and with less cost.
