I remember reading somewhere that
Data is the new asset
Well, it has always been, just that we were busy with UI/UX that we did not pay enough attention probably to data.
But, data across “n” places without the right connections, is just like cash stacked in lockers that cannot be used for transaction (I know, not the best example, just picked it from the recent bank heist movie I saw)
Knock, knock … whose there
– Data Cloud
Data Cloud Who ?
Salesforce Data Cloud, The First Real-Time Platform for Customer Magic
NOTE – Data Cloud was earlier called as ‘Customer Data Platform (CDP)’/Salesforce Genie
Well, that’s how Salesforce likes to call it.
The selling point
Unify all your customer data across different platforms with built in connections.
But wait, all the Salesforce data is already residing in platform – so why do you need another product ?
Well, you are missing this big picture
Image Courtesy Salesforce.com
Think of data across different clouds but with different nomenclature, types, lengths but its all tied to same customer.
Lets read the above image for a bit
Connect
Your company uses multiple clouds, you want to first set connections up. Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud……
You can setup a batch way of importing data or just setup streaming.
Transform
Transform is like a translation – different languages getting translated to one !
Some of the data might be structured, some of it might come as blob.
Decide what to do with the incoming data and map it to right fields
Harmonize
Whohoo…. that’s like a big technical jargon
Well, its not – its getting your data from various sources to be mapped to the final data points you are considering to use for subsequent intelligence.
Say you have to gather customer data across marketing, sales, service, survey, commerce site and at each place the properties, the references information about it are scattered across different fields.
Harmoize essentially means to create a set of data that you can process it next!
Unify
Connect, transform, harmonize and Presto……
Get it in under one umbrella by setting up rules.
Create unified person or company profiles which can bring it all the related data to one place.
Insights & AI
Now that data is flowing in into a unified format, time to see it in action.
Build insights, use AI to build predictions
Segment and Supply
Get the data in segments so that it can be severed to the required channels and in the format the channels expect
Act On Data
Finally, its time to act based on the data that is being sourced.
Mind you, this is not just a field update, email alert that you are getting that you can take some action.
This is a data that has been derived from various sources, brought in to a single form, analysed, predictions built and served to you as a icing on the cake to taste.
That was Data Cloud journey in its most abridged form!!!
The Data Cloud has the base license and some add on licenses Ad Audiences, Data Spaces. Segmentation and Activation which you might want to consider before thinking to implement.
Like all the data decisions, you need the right strategy and define the right KPI of what you want to achieve. You need all teams to work together define how they plan to use the insights.
And, closing remarks
You need a Salesforce Certified Data Cloud Consultant resource to get the best ROI!
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