Kingland Blog

The Data Behind Complex Client Relationships

Written by Jon Loge | 2/26/19 2:20 PM

Right now there are teams updating data related to associations, relationships and hierarchies. All these updates are made in CRM systems, ERP, billing systems, risks systems, and more. The tasks get completed, but how can the teams or any stakeholders use these systems to get an accurate view of the relationships among those entities across the enterprise?

Many organizations are left answering the question, "How many systems does it take to see the associations, relationships and hierarchies from our data?" This is an entity hierarchy management reality for many. 

There are ultimate parents and children to take care of. Trees can include thousands of entities. All of this information must be accurately pulled and rendered. And it's taxing on legacy systems. 

Think about it. An entire organization is making entity updates in separate systems, which can go through multiple steps of submissions and reviews before becoming live data that everyone uses. It's a lengthy process that affects the network and an entire organization. And we are left to hope that our systems have all the correct, updated information. 

Efficiently managing the data being used by legacy systems, identifying the right entities needed for your processes, and visually seeing new relationships are important. Let's see how you can improve risk management, create new business opportunities and enjoy a better understanding of your customers with these four components of hierarchy management. 

Search

Let's start with the search engine. Searching for an entity should allow for an individual to see all the relationships and identify any risk ramifications surrounding this entity. After a merger for example, a new company may no longer be a standalone company. Amazon and Whole Foods come to mind. A good search engine should reveal that it's a controlled subsidiary under Amazon. 

Of course, you'll want the search tuned to your specific needs, providing filtering options, the ability to search a database or cache, and accessibility to real-time system updates. 

Security
Everything from an audit trail to two-factor authentication and encryption for data in motion and at rest, and more, should be part of the early discussions to hierarchy management. 

Think about your third-party security tests, process audits and security code review. Kingland uses a secure solution lifecycle when working with clients which covers requirements, design, implementation testing and operations. 

Relationship Updating
Moving entities is an important step to proper hierarchy management. Selecting a subsidiary to move under another entity is a quick way to see your relationships. The best tools allow you to use a clipboard which can store large data sets and allow you to make updates with multiple entities. 

Drag and drop or cut and pasting entities is a great resource when working with large amounts of data, saving time and providing transparency.

Business Rules
Relationships within a hierarchy aren't just "pointers", they can imply all sorts of logic and association of rules, facts, and various data points. You want addresses, identifiers, contact information, names and more to be inherited from one node in a tree to another via business rules, for example. Organizations want to see and manage how values are applied in relation to those values. They also want to understand the change of the inherited values in a tree compared to what is actually live in the tree. All this involves rules management, workflows and more.

To enable this, Kingland puts decades of domain and industry knowledge into our solutions. Our understanding of the audit rules, compliance guidelines and finance regulations allow us to provide organizations 60-80% of their enterprise data management requirements from the start. 

See how you can simplify entity hierarchy management.