Ice.net needed to build its systems architecture around that data model. Norberg choose two products from Progress Software, an enterprise service bus (ESB) called Progress Sonic, and a data integration tool called Progress DataXtend Semantic Integrator.

Looked at schematically, services such as credit control are plugged into the ESB like Lego blocks, says Norberg. When a new service is ready, the old one is pulled out and replaced. DataXtend is used to create exchange models or mediations between applications and services with different structures and semantics, or definitions.

The first pilot project, integrating the company's online store with the customer and product databases, began in March 2007, and was rolled out in under four weeks. The company used an agile development methodology to add other segments quickly so that by April of this year, nearly all of Ice.net's departments were able to access clean, consistent data, whether it be related to the customer, order intakes or order fulfillments, in real time.

Align Business With IT

Financial services giant Capital One has approximately 50 million customer accounts, roughly 100 times that of Ice.net, but it faced a similar challenge. Capital One had diversified from its core credit card business and, by the end of 2006, had made several acquisitions, including two banks.

"We really need to know who the customer is across different products and what our relationship is," says Capital One CIO Robert Alexander, who saw that storing data in isolated silos was a business obstacle. First on the list for transformation were online services and e-mail. Customers with multiple Capital One products did not want to navigate multiple websites to transact business, and the company needed control over the content, volume and intensity of e-mails it sent to customers.

Alexander's team created what he calls "a single point of truth" about customers by linking the data warehouses in each line of business with a unified data warehouse that reflects information from them all. To limit data replication, Capital One selectively pulls the data from the lines of business and adds it to the central, or analytical, warehouse. (Capital One chose not to disclose its technology partners.)

SOA, and its use of standards and reusable services, is a "best practice" that the company has implemented across its IT infrastructure, including the new enterprise customer management team, says Alexander. The team focuses on using technology to enhance customer experience through channels and activities that no single line of business owns, such as Internet marketing and sales, online servicing, customer e-mails, and mobile banking. What's striking about the transformation is Capital One's move to align business processes with IT. Alexander created a team of representatives from marketing, IT and operations, all of whom ultimately report to him. Why marketing? Their closeness to customers means they are in a position to spell out IT requirements needed to improve customer-related issues, he says.