Social networks have emerged as a vast repository of conversation and information that can be used with internal master data to great improve business analytics, customer service and operational efficiencies.

1. • Cognizant 20-20 Insights
Embracing Social: The Next Step for
Master Data Management
Social networks have emerged as a vast repository of conversation
and information that can be used in conjunction with an organization’s
internal master data to greatly improve business analytics, customer
service and operational efficiencies.
Executive Summary scattered across multiple social media sites,
as well as the common pitfalls and possible
The world has gone social — from election
strategies for success.
campaigns to political protests, and from vaca-
tioning tips to shopping recommendations. As a
The Value of MDM
result, social media and social media marketing
have become key trending topics in any discussion Traditionally, businesses have collected customer
about IT and marketing. The importance of social data by using some or all of the following
networks from a marketing perspective can be approaches:
gauged from the fact that people are increas-
ingly seeking feedback from their social networks
• Sales force automation tools, where a sales
representative enters prospect data that then
about various products and services that they
moves through the sales funnel.
plan to purchase.
• Data feeds from third-party data providers.
Indeed, the advent of social media and its adoption
across the globe is a phenomenon that is not just
• Data provided by prospects and customers
via company Web sites.
evolutionary but also transformative — one that
opens up a host of opportunities for businesses • Inquiriesby prospects and customers via
that are willing to listen, act and adapt. With the other channels such as the call center, etc.
proliferation of social networking platforms and
• Consolidating existing customer data in
tools, marketers must look at a new source of multiple business units of the same organiza-
customer data: social media Web sites such as tion.
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (see Figure 1).
When this data is acquired by the enterprise,
These three are not the only possible sources of
it is often of poor quality, lacking standards,
social data, but they are by far the biggest, and
fragmented and redundant. The accepted wisdom
marketers ignore them at their own peril.
has been to build an MDM solution around this
This white paper addresses the use of master data. With MDM, the enterprise is able to make
data management (MDM) to leverage the data sense of its vast reams of data and get access to
cognizant 20-20 insights | january 2013

2. Social Media’s Ever-Growing Reach
901 million monthly active users, 526 million daily active users
(as of March 31, 2012).
Source: zdnet.com
90 million total users.
Source: thenextweb.com
Others Facebook
100 million monthly
active users.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Facebook accounted for 52.1% of
all online sharing in 2011,
although Twitter and Tumblr are
catching up fast. Sharing via mobile devices
grew 6 times in 2011.
Source: thenextweb.com Source: thenextweb.com
Figure 1 4
accurate and consistent customer data across 150 million profiles on LinkedIn (think business
the different channels. This helps the business contacts for B2B opportunities).
increase customer lifetime value and decrease
acquisition costs by more effectively targeting Tapping into Social Networks
potential customers; it also opens up opportu- Once an organization decides to add social media
nities for up-sell and cross-sell to the existing as a source of customer data, the key question
customer base. that arises is how to obtain this data. Unlike other
sources of customer data where a sales repre-
MDM Strategy for Social Media sentative can contact prospects or data can be
The information on sites such as Facebook, purchased from third-party sources, tapping
Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn or MySpace can be of data from social media is altogether a different
utmost importance in terms of understanding ballgame. There are four ways to gather this
the needs of customers. While companies have information:
created brand or product pages on Facebook
1. Scan social media platforms and match the
and Google+ to advance product promotion or
collected information with that of the existing
customer service, there have been few initiatives
customer base.
directed toward integrating social media as a new
channel for identifying, acquiring and servicing 2. Ask users of social media to like or follow the
customers. To pursue this, organizations need organization/brand on different social media
to integrate social media platforms with their platforms.
existing MDM strategies so that data from the 3. Add social media information about a customer
social platforms enriches the customer data or prospect when he or she uses social media
acquired from other internal or external sources. to contact your company for information or
Doing so can open up more ways to direct relevant a service, or to provide feedback about their
marketing campaigns at the right customers and experiences.
to enable seamless interaction with customers on 4. Proactively ask customers for their social
their medium of choice. media touchpoints.
The business case for such an initiative can be Option 1 is a sure way to find trouble. There are
built easily when one considers the fact that there never-ending concerns about data privacy on
are more than 900 million profiles on Facebook social sites, and hence any attempt at trawling
(direct value for B2C opportunities) and over this data stealthily is sure to result in damaged
cognizant 20-20 insights 2

3. reputation and public backlash. In addition, this name acquired via Options 3 and 4 to capture all
approach may yield poor-quality data full of the available customer information once. Doing
duplicate, fake and inactive profiles. so is fraught with the same type of risks avoided
by discarding Option 1. The target should be to
Option 2 is something that many companies establish an active connection so that up-to-date
already follow by creating profiles on Twitter information about a customer’s social network is
and Facebook and providing a link on their Web readily available to the enterprise; importantly,
sites so that visitors can connect with them on the user should be asked explicitly for permission
social media. However, this is more of a hit-or- before doing so.
miss method; while it may work in some cases
in a limited manner, companies need to be more Many companies have built Facebook apps to
strategic in their approach to maximize the enable interactions with social media users (see
benefits that social media can deliver. Figure 2). Many Web sites have started to give
users an option to log in with their Facebook,
Therefore, we are left with Option 3 and Option Google or Twitter credentials. When a user
4 — two approaches that add social media data, accesses these apps or sites using social media
captured as part of a customer acquisition and credentials, the apps ask for permission to access
maintenance process. MDM can help match data basic information: name, profile picture, gender,
acquired from social media and identify it with networks, user ID, a list of friends and other public
a customer profile that already exists within the information. Some apps even ask permission to
enterprise. This way, the company can truly know send e-mails, access location information and
what a particular customer really thinks about obtain other information such as interests, likes
the company’s products, verify if the product and news feeds. Once access is granted, the link
positioning is correct and increase cross-sell between these apps or sites and the social media
opportunities by suggesting what his connections user is created and remains active unless the per-
or friends are purchasing. missions are revoked by the user.
Another important point to remember is that with Mastering Social Data
MDM, organizations are not interested in static
When a company captures a customer’s social
information about the customer. MDM uses the
data, not all components are important. If the
concept of cross-referencing to ensure the organi-
company has a robust MDM hub in place, it is
zation is aware of the updates made to a customer
possible that the company is already aware of
record in any of the source systems. With social
most of the information captured from the social
MDM, the aim is not to use the social media user
Facebook Apps Can Deliver Tremendous Data Access
Figure 2
cognizant 20-20 insights 3

4. Typical Data Elements Captured in Various Social Sites
Facebook Google Twitter LinkedIn
Friends Friends & circles Short bio Educational background
Family relationships Subscriptions Followers Employment history
Subscriptions Educational background People you follow Connections
Educational background Employment history Current location Groups and associations
Employment history Photos Current location
Photos Current location Contact information
Current location Contact information Interests
Contact information Check-ins
Check-ins Places resided
Pages you like Interests
Interests Articles you liked
Music you listen to* Games*
News articles you read* *Via social apps
Games*
*Via social apps
Figure 3
sites. Figure 3 lists some of the data elements an enterprise understand how recommendations
that are captured by Facebook, Google+, Twitter and word-of-mouth can help drive better sales
and LinkedIn about their users, in addition to and enable it to identify customers who wield
conversations and status messages. influence on social media sites.
While most of these data elements are valuable Knowing the size of a customer’s engaged
to one company or another, we think the real audience of followers and friends who actively
value of social sites comes from understanding subscribe to his or her online messages and
the relationships between customers; this is the assessing the likelihood that these messages will
secret sauce of social MDM (see Figure 4). Under- generate actions (comments, likes, etc.) is bound
standing how customers are related would help to be invaluable to the marketing team.
Integration of Social Media with the Existing MDM Enterprise Architecture
MDM can match the customer profile it
has against the profile coming from the CRM
Jane social networking sites, therefore
Friends, enriching the existing profile by adding
Based on the new information from the social
relationships, or updating relevant attributes.
networking sites, MDM in conjunction with
likes, interests, CRM systems can post relevant ads on the
locations, music, social networking profile, influence friends
books etc. with similar mindsets, etc. Some brands have
even started stores on Facebook.
Social Media
Profile
Gold Copy Record
Jane
The MDM hub stores the individual profile, and
combined with the transactional data, the
organization has complete information about the
Other Source customer, the products the customer buys, the
Systems locations where the customer shops, etc.
Figure 4
cognizant 20-20 insights 4

5. Another trend that has gained traction on social spending habits. Therefore, the benefit is not
media platforms is that of check-ins. Sites such as just limited to targeting the right offers to the
Foursquare, Google+, Facebook and many others right customers, but also the ability to measure
want users to share the physical place they are the effectiveness of such campaigns by using
located. This functionality is often seen as a the statistics around check-ins and sales. These
way by which a social media user can inform his benefits will likely lead companies to location-
friends and followers about where he is traveling based services, as well as define specific places or
and perhaps plan a meeting or get-together with locations on these sites for advertisers to target.
nearby friends.
From an MDM perspective, knowledge of places
However, there is a real business value in user frequented by a customer can represent a location
check-ins. Once the organization has integrated association within the MDM hub. If the company’s
social media with its existing MDM system, knowl- MDM strategy includes plans for collating these
edge of user location offers a tremendous oppor- social locations with the actual physical locations
tunity to marketing teams to reach out to the on- maintained within the company, using standard
the-go user, who is ready to buy and consume, and MDM concepts of matching and trust-based con-
direct him to the nearest point of sale. solidation, the resultant location master can help
to more precisely leverage social check-ins for
Groupon, a popular deal-of-the-day Web site, real-world marketing campaigns (see Figure 5).
has launched a new service that gives users
the ability to find local deals in real-time. This is For example, if a fast-food company builds a
accomplished by mapping a list of time-specific location master where store locations are tagged
daily deals in the user’s vicinity. to nearby social hotspots, it can offer deals and
coupons to customers who check in at these
In addition, a customer’s check-ins on social sites social hotspots and direct them to its nearest
can drive better sales through word-of-mouth stores.
advertising and also help a company understand
How MDM and Social Media Enhance the Customer Experience
Stores may be physical
(location update) or virtual
Social Media Analytics (preference update)
Updates, Location/
B Likes/Interests, etc. Trigger
Names of Stores
ted
upda Customer Preference
MARY
ields
ted f Stores
Purchases Selec
Deal 2
De
De
al
De al A B C
1-
al 2
3 -S
St
–S Interests, likes,
to
or
to re preferences, etc.
e
re Customer Da Store
A
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Master Master
Da
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From Social From Source
De
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Networks Systems
ode
Hey friends! Customer
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Exciting deals on Name
your way.. Mary’s friends with
similar interests & CRM — Deal Builder
preferences Deal Codes
Great! Let’s
check out.. C
B
A Customer Product
om
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Dea History
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cha
Pur Stores
Figure 5
cognizant 20-20 insights 5

6. Social Media for B2B grows at a very rapid rate (for example, there are
over 60 million updates on Facebook everyday),
While it is true that the B2C side of social media
and not all the activities and conversations may
has seen greater traction so far, the impact of
be relevant. Making sense of the vast amounts
social media in the business-to-business (B2B)
of unstructured data on these platforms can
space is just now being felt. A recent study by
be a daunting task. Understanding moods and
Business.com reveals that
sentiments from comments, survey responses
Integrating MDM 55% of B2B survey respon- and other social activities will be critical to under-
dents search for informa-
with social initiatives tion using social media. standing the relationships between customers
can lead to even Approximately 53% of B2B and gaining an insight into customer behavior.
better results when companies actively use Social MDM should be treated as an extension of
Twitter in their marketing
organizations provide efforts, while 90% use the MDM hub that an organization has in place,
and it cannot work in a silo. However, adding
all channels with Facebook, according to social sites as a data source to the MDM hub is
clean, consistent and a report on Mediabistro. not sufficient. A shift in mindset is needed to
However, it is LinkedIn
trustworthy data. that rules the roost in this ensure that social sites are not seen within the
organization as a broadcasting or advertising tool
segment, generating more but as a medium of interaction through which the
leads than Facebook, Twitter and even blogs. A company and the customer learn a little more
Wisconsin Hospital has reported a 15% conversion about each other.
of leads to sales using live tweeting during
orthopedic surgery, the same Mediabistro report CRM processes need to change to ensure that
noted. These findings demonstrate that social social media credentials are requested and
media can create opportunities in both the B2C captured proactively during the customer acqui-
and the B2B spaces. sition phase and at each customer touchpoint.
Privacy considerations need to be top-of-
Integrating MDM with social initiatives can lead to mind; for instance, information should not be
even better results when organizations provide all trawled recklessly but always requested from
channels with clean, consistent and trustworthy the customer. Relationships among customers,
data. The benefits may be more obvious for B2C location information and customer sentiment are
companies right now, but B2B companies should critical data elements. The strategy should focus
focus on aligning their social and MDM strategies on making sense of these data points rather than
to avoid being late to the party. These companies getting lost in the vast sea of unstructured data
should get started by enacting Options 3 and 4 — that social platforms contain.
adding social media information about a customer
or prospect when he or she uses social media to In a business environment where innovation is
interact with the company or to proactively ask a must, not for competitive advantage but for
customers for their social media touchpoints. survival, companies must venture into uncharted
territories. That may make social MDM a bit of
Conclusion a challenge for some organizations; however,
Making MDM systems social networking-aware the opportunities are immense and the rewards
is not going to be easy. Social networks evolve highly enticing for those willing to stretch outside
very quickly; only an agile organization can keep their traditional comfort zones.
pace with them. The data on any social network
cognizant 20-20 insights 6

7. References
• “Gartner Highlights Three Trends That Will Shape the Master Data Management Market,” Gartner,
Inc., May 4, 2011, http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1666414.
• Beth Schultz, “Social Media Data and Your Single Source of Truth,” All Analytics, August 2, 2011,
http://www.allanalytics.com/author.asp?section_id=1411&doc_id=231958.
• “The Future of Sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus,” Mashable, Feb. 15, 2012,
http://mashable.com/2012/02/15/future-of-sharing-facebook-twitter-google/.
• Shea Bennett, “How Social is B2B?” AllTwitter, March 28, 2012,
http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/b2b-social-marketing_b20019.
• Emil Protalinski, “Facebook Has Over 901 Million Users, Over 488 Million Mobile Users,” ZDNet, April
23, 2012, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-has-over-901-million-users-over-488-mil-
lion-mobile-users/12105.
• Rosa Golijan, “Consumers Reports: Facebook Privacy Problems Are On The Rise,” NBCNews,
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/consumer-reports-facebook-privacy-problems-are-
rise-749990.
About the Authors
Abhinay Verma is a Senior Business Consultant with Cognizant’s Customer Solutions Practice. He has
eight-plus years of IT industry experience and has managed challenging engagements for clients in phar-
maceuticals, biotechnology and banking industries in North America and the UK. His primary areas of
focus include MDM strategy, assessment and roadmap creation; MDM implementation; business process
modeling; data governance and data quality. Abhinay has a bachelor’s degree in electronics and com-
munication engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, and an MBA in marketing and finance
from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He can be reached at Abhinay.Verma@cognizant.com.
Tushar Sinha is a Senior Business Consultant with the MDM Sub-Practice within Cognizant’s Customer
Solutions Practice. Tushar has eight-plus years of experience in the IT field, with rich domain experience
in healthcare and retail. He has executed multiple strategic projects in the areas of MDM strategy, data
governance consulting and implementation; MDM assessment and roadmap creation; business process
modeling; vendor evaluation; gap analysis; and MDM implementation. He also leads multiple business
development activities. Tushar has a bachelor’s degree in telecommunication engineering from the
BMS College of Engineering, Bangalore, and an MBA in systems and operations from Xavier Institute of
Management, Bhubaneswar. He can be reached at Tushar.Sinha@cognizant.com.
About Cognizant
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