tomers in one place then, clearly, the first step has been accomplished. However, that does not guarantee that anyone will use it. If the system is not developed to meet the actual needs of each of the business units, then they will not use it, pure and simple. Any system that the members of the customer service, sales, marketing, or advertising organizational units perceive as delivering no value or creating more work for them will quickly be dismissed as useless. Remember, treating customers with a single view is not an important objective for individual business units. They are out to accomplish their particular business objectives (more new customers, more sales, increased revenue). To them, customers are interchangeable variables in an equation targeted for the accomplishment of their goals. If the centralized data warehouse does not help each customer touchpoint organizational unit meet its objectives and key performance indicators (what management reviews to decide whether the unit is doing its job), then the units will ignore the system. This scenario underscores the entire CRM challenge. How do you get a group of independently tasked, measured, and managed business units to cooperate for the sake of the long-term relationship with a customer when doing SO will make their jobs more difficult? That is the real challenge. The Data Warehouse Must Have Teeth This also underscores the single reason that SO many efforts at customer relationship management and the use of customer data warehouse systems have failed. If you do not give the customer data warehouse (the system you have created as the means of eXcellence in Telecommunications The Telco Churn Handbook guaranteeing the appropriate treatment of customers in all situations across all organizational boundaries) some teeth, then it will not be effective. Figure 10-3: The Data Warehouse Must Have Teeth This data warehouse needs to hold consolidated information about the customers, but it also must provide you with the means to set customer relationship mana