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Oracle's (Nasdaq: ORCL) steady march to integrate its string of multimillion-dollar acquisitions continues. Its latest meld is the PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM 
9 application with the Oracle Customer Hub, with Fusion middleware serving as the common platform.
The end result is a CRM enterprise suite with master data management features, explained Oracle Vice President of MDM Strategy Pascal Laik.
MDM Scourge
Master data management, or MDM, is the CRM industry's answer to the ubiquitous scourge of so-called dirty data: duplicate customer names in a database; misspellings; incorrect contact information; incomplete buying records -- to name just a few examples.
"Before this integration, PeopleSoft CRM did not have MDM capabilities," Laik told CRM Buyer. "This meant the end user could not see if there was duplicated information in the database, for instance, or have the ability to clean up the data."
Without MDM, he said, companies are basing key CRM decisions on potentially unclean data. For instance, point-of-sales offers made to high net worth customers or high value customers might be inappropriate because of incomplete or inaccurate information.
"Basically, you are not providing the right level of service to a customer if the data is questionable," Laik said. "In fact, anything you do in the CRM application is questionable if your data is suspect."
New Apps in 2008
This year, Oracle will begin introducing fusion-based applications -- that is, new products built from its various acquired technologies by means of its application integration architecture, an open, standards-based platform that it unveiled last year.
The platform includes prebuilt integrations for Oracle ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM and industry-specific applications using a common object model and an open, BPEL (business process execution language)-based platform.
Until then, the company is largely sticking to its self-imposed integration schedule, rolling out such products as the Siebel-Oracle E-Business Suite integration and now, the PeopleSoft CRM 9-Customer Hub linkup.
PeopleSoft CRM 9 Meets the Hub
The fusion middleware-based integration of PeopleSoft CRM 9 and the Oracle Customer Hub includes the following:
- Bi-directional sync of customer data between the two applications through Oracle BPEL Process Manager;
- Enhanced "fuzzy" search capabilities in PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM customer search screens using data quality management (DQM) configurable match rules;
- Duplicate prevention in real-time on the customer entry screens;
- Identification of duplicate customers within PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM and merge of duplicate customers using the Oracle Customer Hub Data Steward -- customer records are merged in the Oracle Customer Hub and PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM; and
- Out-of-the-box connection services to Dun & Bradstreet (D&B).
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