Most transaction processing systems capture data at the account level. But individual customers may have multiple accounts of one or several types. Summarizing accounts at the customer level permits you to assess the most full profile available on a customer. Similarly, you will only need to obtain external data once when today you may be buying the data for individual accounts, increasing expenses unnecessarily.
The next step is to householding -- bringing accounts from a household together in analysis. Third party programs and processes are available to perform householding. Typically householding combines the accounts of spouses so that an accurate assessment of the household's needs can be made.
In some cases it will be necessary to analyze data on an account only, ignoring other relationships. This occurs in cases where future decisions will be based only on the account information, usually for data processing reasons. Implementation issues must be assessed before beginning any project. Of course, it may make sense to include other account data in the analysis in order to assess its information value. If the value is great enough it may justify a change in the underlying system to facilitate implementation.
CDG can provide a perspective and experience to this challenge. Weighing the costs and benefits of different approaches we can help you make smart choices.
