The challenge of consolidating different data bases

Nowadays it is quite common to see companies with functional departments that, apart from having a central data base common to all the company, have information coming from multiple in-house applications that, in the majority of cases, is not centralised nor shared with other divisions in company. This dispersion of data creates redundancies in information, makes it difficult to get a single record of actions and customers, and forces the IT department to perform a specific task each time crossed information between two or more departments is required. For this reason, one of the main challenges for the IT department is to consolidate the different data bases with the company’s central data base. This can offer tremendous benefits for the organisations. Firstly, it can create substantial savings in costs. According to Giga Group, some consolidation processes can save up to 50% of the budget for technology. On the other hand, it lets the company improve the administration of its data base, as it reduces the number of people that have to intervene in the operation. Finally, centralisation makes other tasks easier, such as back-ups and records of processes. For Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the United States, which manages over 148,000 million dollars in assets, consolidation of its data bases has meant a saving for fund managers in terms of hours of work. Before going through with this process, the company had a data base for each of its financial products, so the most important information on each customer, such as his activities, transactions and preferences, came from more than ten different sources. Now, knowing the services each customer has is just a matter of seconds. Given that the greatest profitability, according to the company, comes from the sale of additional products or upselling to the same customer, the merging of data into a single source has provided the company with numerous benefits. Furthermore, the Wells Fargo marketing department is developing new products thanks to the information it gets from crossing the information it has on its customers. Finally, the costs of the IT department have gone down as its people can devote the time it formerly spent on crossing data to designing new consultancy services for the central data base. As you can see, costs are not the only reason behind companies consolidating their data bases. The added value in terms of intellectual capital is perhaps even more important.