Alexis
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Talk Tech with Data Dave. I’m Alexis, your host of this podcast, and I am here today with none other than Data Dave. Dave, how are you today?
Data Dave
I’m very well, Alexis. How are you?
Alexis
I’m good. The sun is finally shining here. It has been raining for like two straight weeks, and I’m over it, but the sun is out, and I’m so happy.
Data Dave
Good, Excellent.
Alexis
Okay, so here is context for the question. It’s a real thing.
Last week, we were in a meeting with some of the architects, and you started talking to them about basically a solution we were building and how we need to make sure that our enterprise data is always connected, specifically in this case to Amazon Connect Customer, which is the platform that the customer was actually using. But that’s not relevant to the question. But it could be, whatever. Okay, so the enterprise data needed to be connected to that just to make sure that everything was kind of working properly. You all talked for a little while, and finally I interrupted the conversation and said, “Dave, let’s podcast about this because I’ve got questions.”
So, I would like to start there and have you talk a little bit about why it’s important for those two things to be connected. And then let me start asking the questions that I was having throughout because it was a good conversation. You guys dropped the word silo; you guys dropped the word data management. It was really great, and I think it will be good for our listeners. So, let’s throw it out there.
Data Dave
Okay, so yes, I remember the conversation.
There was a lot. So yes, we’re having a conversation, particularly about a customer that was implementing Amazon Connect Customer to run a call center around customer support and customer outreach. So, that was the basis of the conversation. And intrinsic to that, of course, we’re talking about customers, we’re talking about customer outreach, et cetera is the profile of “Customer”. You got to know who your customers are and what the profile of those customers are.
Alexis
The profile as in like who they are, their name, their email address…
Data Dave
Their phone number, their email address, everything about demo information, purchase history, what products have they bought, everything that they’ve done. What is the profile of this customer? What I was reminding the team of is often, we… people…everybody gets focused on the job at hand, they get focused on what they’re doing, and they forget that the job at hand is operating in context of a broader something.
In this instance, we’re talking about Amazon Connect Customer, running the relationship and interaction with the customer. But the danger is forgetting that the customer is also a fee-paying customer that is being managed in an ERP system, CRM system, or other systems. And people will focus and start to say, “Well, I’ve got to create my customer in Connect or in Salesforce or in ERP or whatever and forget that the customer is actually broader than that, and the customer spans all these systems.”
Alexis
Yes.
Data Dave
We often look at projects, and we look at projects in isolation, and we look at them in, to use the term, silo.
We’re doing the Amazon Connect project or we’re doing the Salesforce project, or we’re doing the ERP project or we’re doing the whatever project, and we get focused on doing that project. And all these systems are integral in their own right. So, they do have the ability to stand alone, and they do have the ability to manage this data themselves. The question is, should we use that application’s ability to manage customer data, or should we be making sure that customer profile, that customer data, is connected into the rest of the organization profile?
Alexis
Yes.
Data Dave
And in a data driven world and a data architected world, we need to ensure that the data is interconnected and that the handoff between Salesforce, erp, Amazon Connect or whatever other systems that need customer data is clean and is complete and operates properly. That they’re not operating in silos, and they’re not falling into the trap of, “I need to get my project done, so I’m going to do what’s right for my project,” without looking outside the bounds of your project into what is happening across the organization.
Alexis
Yes.
Data Dave
So that’s what I was trying to remind people of.
Alexis
I know why that conversation was resonating with me so much. Now I’m having flashbacks to when I used to work at the university.
We used a CRM system that was specifically designed for housing because I worked in housing, and it pulled information from the greater university’s bigger CRM system, their ERP system, like that had all of it, but it couldn’t send information back to that. Okay, so, so like we could get the students’ names from them, but we couldn’t send information back to it. And so, it was only a one-way street. And it caused so many problems for us.
Data Dave
Right.
Alexis
Because the two systems didn’t talk to each other, and so it created these data silos for us.
Data Dave
Exactly.
Alexis
I must have been hearing you guys and thinking about that but realizing I was thinking about that and then having this, like, trauma that was going off in my brain.
Data Dave
Exactly. So often this is the problem. Right?
And you’ve heard me say this before, which is, everybody’s got a data architecture, but nobody knows what it is. Right? Everybody’s got an enterprise data architecture, but nobody knows what it is. What we try and do — to try and lead people to do — is actually architect your data architecture by doing different projects. Right? So it’s kind of, you’ve got to keep an eye on that North Star, that vision of integrated data, integrated applications, all the way through your application projects.
So if we look at history, we now expect integrated data. We expect people to know what happened yesterday. We expect me to be able to make a purchase from an organization and the customer support organization not need to be told that I made that purchase. The sales system should talk to the customer service system, and the customer service system should know that I made that purchase yesterday. We expect that kind of thing as consumers. I do anyway.
Alexis
Yeah.
Data Dave
I don’t have to call customer support and say, “Hey, I bought this yesterday,” and then say, “Oh, well, okay, let me figure out what happened.” Yeah, they should know. Well, that means that the data architecture needs to be connected because the sales system is probably different from the customer support system, but the customer profile and the customer history should be consistent across them.
So the point here is, often, especially historically, people get focused on, “I’m going to do this application implementation for this purpose.” Great, excellent. But does it tell everything else next to it that it did something? Making sure you’re looking at, where does the data architecture go? How does this project impact not only itself and its consumers, but also the broader data architecture and the broader data ecosystem that it’s operating in?
Alexis
And so you were reminding our architects…
Data Dave
reminding our architects to keep focused on that.
Alexis
Yes. Not just.
Data Dave
Not just get pigeonholed into, does the Amazon Connect system do what it’s supposed to do? Which is great, it needs to, but it also has to do what it needs to do for the broader enterprise, not just for its particular audience.
Alexis
And that’s why we have become good at Amazon Connect Customers. Because we’re data people.
Data Dave
Because we’re data people first. And when you approach everything from a data perspective and a data landscape perspective, then it starts to change your thinking because it’s not just, “Can the Amazon Connect people or the call center operate and operate effectively,” but how do they inform the way that the customer relationship is growing, is expanding, is changing based off the interactions that it’s doing? Because that’s what you’re really trying to do. You’re managing the relationship of the organization with the organization’s customers.
And so, this is important to make sure that the organization understands how that relationship is evolving, is changing, is expanding. And finance has a part of that, sales has a part of that, customer support has a part of that service, or anything else. Any part of the organization that is touching that relationship is affecting that relationship. And so that relationship is changing from a data backbone perspective. Does that make sense?
Alexis
Yes.
Data Dave
What I was trying to remind the architects was to make sure they kept working towards the greater good. Yes. You’re doing an Amazon Connect Customer project. Can you also focus on what it is doing for the entire customer profile and make sure you’re consuming and feeding that data ecosystem, that data architecture?
Alexis
Yes, and that’s just good practice. Obviously, we’re talking about Amazon Connect Customer here, but that’s good practice no matter what we’re doing, no matter who’s listening here. Like that’s the Data Dave take of the week.
Data Dave
Exactly. It’s the same old adage, “Operate local, think global.” Right? “Think global, act local.” So, you can think global, think globally, think about your enterprise architecture. But I am acting in this application implementation. But I have to do it in construct of the global viewpoint. Right? I can’t completely ignore the global. I have to think global, act local.
Alexis
Love it. That’s perfect.
Data Dave
That’s kind of what I was trying to remind people is, yes, I know time is pressured. I know deadlines are there. I know projects have to get moving and get on with doing what they need to do to satisfy their needs and satisfy their deadlines, et cetera. But we also are thinking about how the project impacts the other things adjacent to it in the global infrastructure or the global ecosystem, particularly in this case, the data ecosystem.
Alexis
Yes, perfect. That is exactly what I was hoping we could talk about. Dave, you hit the nail on the head there. Thank you so much for diving into that with me. Because like I said, I knew there was a reason why that was sitting with me, and that is exactly what it was. Everything was just firing off in my brain at one time.
Listeners out there, if you have a question for Data Dave, do not hesitate to reach out to us. You can always email us at talktech@d3clarity.com or you can reach out to Dave or myself right on LinkedIn.
Dave, it has been a pleasure chatting with you today, and again, thank you for diving into that with me.
Data Dave
Thank you. You’re welcome. No worries.
