But as customers moved online the need was for marketing to occur online, and powerfully in “real time”. Most of the CRM and analytics was done offline, which had been fine in the past since marketing to customers was done through paper mail and later through email. So, if a customer had three products and moved to a new house, you would have to update their address in three places (this challenge has only increased in complexity with the need for consistent, omni-channel user experiences). As banks ran multiple core banking systems for different product lines, customer data and its management was being duplicated. The need for a separate platform for managing customers is simple and clear. These were the days before customer relationship management (CRM) solutions existed. I was part of a project at Lloyds Bank in the early 90’s where close to a billion pounds was spent developing a separate customer management system, and at the time, it was the first to do so. Larger banks separated customer management into a separate system in the 90’s. So, what is a DBP, why is one needed and who needs one?
