Enterprises today are investing in customer experience programs to accelerate revenue and growth rates by shifting the focus from a transactional sales relationship to that of strategic partners with shared success. This type of strategic approach requires a complete view of the customer and the business. However, many organizations struggle with departmental data silos, complex operating models and infrastructure challenges, making it extremely difficult to assemble a comprehensive, single view across all data sources.
The Salesforce Analytics Cloud gives businesses an unprecedented level of insight into their customers’ preferences and patterns. But unlocking that potential requires the ability to access and manage data from multiple cloud and on-premises sources, a task that is only possible using the Informatica Cloud portfolio of products.
Traditional Business Intelligence (BI) Reporting and Data Warehouse (DW) operations require expert IT teams to implement and maintain the systems. Data needs to be consolidated from underlying data sources such as ERP systems and other RDBMS, then move through rigorous modeling and staging for reporting. This entire process usually takes about 4 to 6 months, does not offer real-time capabilities, and requires enormous effort to obtain updates. With Informatica and Salesforce Analytics combined, the whole process can be archived in just a few weeks. Customers can then focus on delivering meaningful insights from the clean and reliable data using Informatica Cloud for Salesforce Analytics.
The way Informatica helps customers achieve the insights they need from Salesforce Analytics can be grouped into 5 essential phases.
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Phase 1: Data Preparation
This phase involves extracting a sample of data to prototype dashboards and uncover issues. The goal is to ensure and validate the outcome and insights. Customers can quickly validate the data sample and move to the next step: processing the data.
This phase involves 4 steps:
Extract a sample of data for analysis
Uncover issues such as inconsistencies and duplicates
Prepare the data to fit into the right format for the dashboards
Track these changes for use in the next steps.
Phase 2: Integration
This phase involves building out the various integration points across the diverse data sources. For example:
Extracting product and revenue data from ERP systems
Associating this data with accounts
Ensuring that a timeline of revenue sold into each account is visible
Phase 3: Data Quality
This phase focuses on using the Informatica platform’s more advanced capabilities, including Data Quality: Profiling, Cleansing, Enrichment and De-duplication for Data Profiling, Cleansing, Enrichment and De-duplication. This process ensures the data is clean, secure and consistent.
Data Profiling helps determine the quality of the data in the source systems. At this stage, inconsistencies, fragmentation, and any issues with standardization can be highlighted.
Cleansing helps rectify issues that profiling has uncovered. Cleansing includes the validation of address and contact details as well as the opportunity for enriching the data using purchased data lists.
De-duplication involves identifying potential duplicate Accounts, Contacts, or Leads and then automatically merging them or facilitating a safe and wizard-based manual merge.
DQ – through CC 360 and MDM – is a long term requirement.
Phase 4: Multiple Org Coordination
Larger enterprises often face the challenge of assembling a view across different Salesforce implementations, or orgs. Since each Salesforce org has its own business processes and details, this step requires a high level of coordination. Informatica offers solutions around Customer 360 and MDM to help monitor and manage all the different salesforce orgs and keep the underlying structure and complexity hidden from end users.
Phase 5: Hierarchies and The Master Record
This is a more mature and longer-duration phase. Once the data has been cleansed and de-duplicated, the next stage is mastering the record to create a Golden Record in the Cloud Analytics org. This provides the single view of customers across all the Salesforce implementations, and integrates the view with all the Informatica products and platforms. This also includes highlighting necessary connections between subsidiary accounts that relate to your company and/or Contacts.
To help make progression through the various phases a simpler and convenient experience, Informatica has just announced the Informatica for Salesforce Wave Bundle. You can find out more details here.
Click on the following resources to learn how Informatica Cloud can help with your Cloud Analytics initiatives.
The State of Cloud Analytics White Paper and Webinar
Informatica for Salesforce Wave Bundles
Best Practice Guide for Salesforce Analytics
Informatica for Salesforce Wave Analytics
Informatica Cloud Academy: Cloud Analytics
Webinar: 5 Ways to Make Waves with Informatica and Salesforce Analytics
Date: February 15, 2016