How long has a customer been with the company? Who lives in their household? What future products and services might they enjoy? The answers to all of these questions are available through master data management.   Data is central to creating personalized customer experiences. And the future of data analytics is master data management or MDM.  Master data management creates a centralized place for companies to store and manage customer data. Patrick Terry, SVP, Head of Enterprise Data & Analytics at Heartland Financial, says that companies must be consistent with how they use data if they want data analytics to work. But in a typical company, each department uses different systems to look at various aspects of customer data. The marketing department cares about different data than the finance department, which uses different data than the customer service department. The result is often confusion with everyone working off different sets of truths.  Master data management analyzes how all the customer data relates to each other and then becomes the central source of truth that the entire company can pull from. Terry points out that it isn’t a single system, but rather a way to centralize and standardize data that can then be used with many different systems, from CRM to account management systems and beyond.  Within a household, there might be two spouses with their own accounts and a teenager with an account. Master data management rolls that individual information into a household and allows the company to market both to the entire household and each individual as needed. A consistent understanding of each customer, as well as each household and customer grouping, eliminates unnecessary communication and provides a strong understanding of customers.  Master data management is the foundation of a high-quality, personalized experience. It builds a strong understanding of customers by using accurate and updated information. By creating one source of truth, all the systems that want to reach out to customers can do so in a way that is consistent and trustworthy.  In Terry’s world of banking, MDM helps banks become customer-centric and not account-centric. There are numerous ways customers can interact with the bank beyond just having an account, and master data management tracks the many relationships and customer preferences instead of organizing people by their accounts.  Modern customer experiences start with strong data analytics. Going forward, personalization will become even more focused and crucial. Master data management centralizes data and allows companies to work more efficiently internally and deliver amazing personalized experiences to customers. *Sponsored by Informatica Companies with a legacy foundation need to see it as a legacy to build on for creating a next-generation CX strategy based with customer data management at its core.  A customer-centric architecture starts with the business outcomes and what the company is trying to achieve that is unique to every company.  Master Data Management delivers an opportunity to standardize data domains such as customer, product, supplier, location – and help organizations create consistent relationships across any channel. Learn more about how Informatica helps organizations deliver great CX with a foundation of intelligent data. Go to informatica.com/cx. _______________ Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. Sign up for her new course here. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.