CRM Put To the Challenge

That's why JPM Chase is working to rationalize its CRM systems. The key challenge is getting information to the lines of business in a consistent manner. That means offering integrated customer management that provides seamless access to information across various channels, including bank branches, the Internet and voice-response systems. The first step was to come up with a unified CRM strategy. Next, a data model that got the separate lines of business to agree on how different metrics were defined--like the customer, products and other common attributes that require data semantics, such as the definitions of an address and a household--was created. To simplify that process, JPM Chase has what it calls an XML Center of Excellence, which provides standard ways of writing application components using XML's CIM syntax.

"What happens is we build XML messages and publish them in the repository. [Then] people know that they are there," says Lydia Barron, vice president in the Chase Financial Services unit. "They won't try to reinvent something that already exists, and they get to releverage the standard message."

JPM Chase is upgrading to Siebel's CRM suite of applications across servers and at branch offices using IBM's WebSphere MQ Integrator software to connect disparate data using XML standards. Various solution providers, including IGS as well as several offshore services providers, are providing the services, Barron says. Going forward, JPM Chase is looking for new ways to uniquely identify customers, while also ensuring that as systems are migrated, data remains tied to the customer system of record. Says Barron: "It is a challenge, but it is our No. 1 objective right now."