One of the key requirements that companies must face as they develop the fabled “360 degree view” of their customers is data integration. Let’s get one thing straight: this isn’t fun. It can be extraordinarily difficult and perplexing. However, it isn’t impossible either.
ING, the global insurance and financial services powerhouse, has managed to integrate customer data on behalf of its 27 lines of business. As one would imagine, there are lots of different applications. "With customer information, agreements, and product types, you may have one use for them in the call center app, another use in profitability analysis, and another use for marketing," says the company's CTO, Raymond Karrenbauer in Line 56.

Karrenbauer is in charge of a group that uses data integration software and other tools to make customer data and underlying data models accessible to all business units (and geographies) – and thus avoid “reinventing the wheel.” He relies on software from Informatica. However, there are numerous innovative ways of addressing this problem, as Anil Gupta points out in a recent Intelligent Enterprise cover story. Such efforts are vital if companies are to gain the panoramic perspectives necessary to address customers as the individuals they are.