Customer data is crucial, yet all too often, the industry struggles to efficiently consolidate and analyze it. There is no single version of the “truth” about each customer, as the most recent information and intelligence are not shared evenly across the company. As a result, customers may be “touched” by different departments of the same company multiple times per week – or even per day – for a single brand. However, open next-generation CRM solutions allow companies to consolidate customer data points across teams and geographies to build a comprehensive, constantly updated single customer view.