The importance of foundation data in Sales and Order Management

[Chris Pearson]

Whether you’re using ServiceNow to manage your entire Lead to Cash operations or simply to orchestrate your Order Fulfillment process, having complete and accurate foundation data is crucial to the success of your project. The three essential types of foundation data are Accounts, Contacts, and Locations.

Accounts in ServiceNow represent the legal entities you do business with, either as customers or partners. These records often include attributes like the legal entity name, primary contact, and Tax ID. ServiceNow allows for complex parent/child relationships, which are vital for representing corporate structures, such as a fast-food chain with franchisee owners. Accurate account information ensures that products are correctly organized and assigned to proper legal entities and prevents disruptions in billing and communications.

Contacts are associated with specific accounts and can be linked to one or multiple accounts. Each contact record holds details like email addresses, phone numbers, and contact types such as billing, primary, or technical support. ServiceNow lets you define and assign any number of contact types, ensuring that each contact serves its intended purpose in your business processes. Without accurate contact data, proactive case management suffers, and communication plans can fall apart if crucial information like email addresses or phone numbers are missing or incorrect.

Location data is managed across two tables: the Location table (storing street addresses and latitude/longitude) and the Account Address table, which allows multiple physical locations to be linked to accounts. Accurate location data ensures that orders are associated to the correct addresses and tracked properly in the product inventory for transparent reporting and customer visibility.

The tricky part of ensuring quality for this foundation data is that each of these data sets could originate from different platforms. An analysis should be performed with the help of enterprise architects and business process owners to determine current and future state for this data origination and dissemination across multiple platforms. The stewardship and automated synching of this critical data across all platforms which require access to it will set the stage for long-term success and should not be overlooked.

#SOMT #TSM #TNI #TSOM #Telecom #Thirdera #ServiceNow