Building the Customer-Centric Enterprise: Data Warehousing Techniques for Supporting Customer Relationship Management (Paperback)

~ (Author), Lisa Loftis (Author), Jonathan G. Geiger (Author) "Many Customer Relationship Management (CRM) definitions focus on the importance of knowing your customer and acting on that knowledge..." (more)
Key Phrases: strategic operations group, quality customer data, decision support interface, Corporate Information Factory, Customer Life Cycle, Zachman Framework (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"When it comes time to get serious about CRM, all paths lead to the infrastructure that CRM processing is built on. And no one understands that architecture better than Claudia Imhoff and her co-authors."--W. H. Inmon, billinmon.com

"Alvin Toffler predicted this in "Powershift" 10 years ago. No one can say they weren't warned! Claudia Imhoff and her co-authors, Jonathan Geiger and Lisa Loftis, are giving you a roadmap to CRM... This is a MUST READ for every serious manager."--John Zachman, Zachman International

"If your company wants to get closer to its customers, then read this book! It provides a practical guide for creating the technical infrastructure your company needs to effectively manage customer data and build lasting relationships with customers."--Wayne Eckerson, The Data Warehousing Institute

"Claudia Imhoff, along with her co-authors, has written another winner with Building the Customer-Centric Enterprise! Whether your company is just beginning to understand your customers' needs for personalized interaction, or has already made some inroads in providing a personalized customer experience, this book is for you. It describes not only what the move to CRM means, but also what frameworks, strategies, and structures will facilitate it." Susan Osterfelt, Bank of America

"For years, customer-focused companies have tried to understand who their best customers are and how to best serve them. Getting the data and the tools was hard. Now with supermarket scanners, loyalty programs and especially the Internet, we have the data. Now we need the tools. The Corporate Information Factory (CIF) is a valuable toolkit for customer-focused companies. The authors, all experts in the field, share their knowledge of CRM and CIF in chapters that build from the reasons to implement CRM to the data requirements and data management techniques for supporting CRM."--Bill Baker, Microsoft Corporation

Product Description

Strategies for leveraging information technologies to improve customer relationships
With E-business comes the opportunity for companies to really get to know their customers--who they are and their buying patterns. Business managers need an integrated strategy that supports customers from the moment they enter the front door--or Web site--right through to fulfillment, support, and promotion of new products and services. Along the way, IT managers need an integrated set of technologies--from Web sites to databases and data mining tools--to make all of this work. This book shows both IT and business managers how to match business strategies to the technologies needed to make them work. Claudia Imhoff helped pioneer this set of technologies, called the Corporate Information Factory (CIF). She and her coauthors take readers step-by-step through the process of using the CIF for creating a customer-focused enterprise in which the end results are increased market share and improved customer satisfaction and retention. They show how the CIF can be used to ensure accuracy, identify customer needs, tailor promotions, and more.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (February 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471319813
• ISBN-13: 978-0471319818
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,426,200 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good reference but the "CIF" strikes back !, March 25, 2001

By	patrick darmon (Paris France) - See all my reviews

A Data Warehouse and CRM consultant I was finally expecting the industry reference that would present the role of the Data Warehousing in CRM in clear terms and with authority.

In many sense, this is the right book : it provides a broad and knowledgeable overview of the various CRM tools and architecture and how they interact.

The problem is that it goes slightly beyond by replacing Data Warehouse by the "Corporate Information Factory" (CIF) Inmon and Inhoff framework which is anything but cristal clear because it adds the Operational Data Store in the picture without answering the real question : why an ODS rather than process automation through EAI ? The book has a whole chapter on the ODS subject but you do not find a real answer to the "do I need one ?" question

If you have to do a project after, you might want to read "Designing a Data Warehouse : Supporting Customer Relationship Management" by Chris Todman, very similar title but more data modeling and project oriented.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great balance of the technical and business aspects of CRM, April 12, 2001

By	eganov (WI USA) - See all my reviews

If I had to recommend one book on CRM this would be it. This is, by far, the best book I have read that ties together the business and technology aspects of CRM. It does this in a meaty kind of way that leaves you satisfied but not stuffed. True, this is not a book that technologists are going to use to learn how to do dimensional modeling or build an ODS. It's also not a book that is filled with anecdotes and strategic discussions about the value of customer loyalty and retention. What it does do though, is show how the technology is related to the business, and vice versa, with a good amount of detail. If you just read the technology or business specific books there is a tendancy to see the trees and miss the forest. This book shows just the right amount of both. I particularly appreciate the fact that this is a pretty dense book content-wise. Every chapter has something of value and is related to the subject of the book. There are an appropriate amount of illuminating illustrations and the filler (endless appendixes, references, project plans, case studies, off subject topics, etc.) that is far to commonplace, is kept to a minimum. Executives, Managers and Project Leaders from both inside and outside of I/T would do well to start their education here before embarking on any CRM-type projects.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely, practical and reliable from a recognized CRM expert!, April 13, 2001

By	DrSRG "DrSRG" (Shanghai, China) - See all my reviews

Dr. Imhoff, with this book has provided a roadmap for turning your information technology infrastructure into an invaluable toolkit for providing customer-focused applications for your company. If your company follows the guidelines provided within this text the results can be a fully integrated, single version of the truth; view of your customer base, which of course is the basis for successful Customer Relationship Management. The emphasis on integration, quality and detail data is vital, if your company is to provide the much sought after one-to-one customer relationship, which in today's volatile business environment has become a necessity. If you read only one book on CRM, be sure this text is your "bible" for building the customer centric enterprise.