I’ve spent a lot of time recently talking to Customer Data Platform vendors, or companies that looked like they might be. One that sits right on the border is Reltio, which fits the CDP criteria* but goes beyond customer data to all types of enterprise information. That puts it more in the realm of Master Data Management.

Acxiom has added self-service access to its massive Audience Cloud database of cross-channel customer data, Marketers can specify segments, set up test groups, and distribute audiences to their own systems or to advertisers through Acxiom’s LiveRamp partner network.  It’s just another step in making third party data more widely and easily available.

IT teams spend lots of time on repetitive requests from business users, finds this TeamDynamix survey.  You might think the implication is IT should let users do more for themselves.  But the main time-wasters are things like password resets, employee on-boarding, and managing credentials, which can’t really be delegated.  And here’s the kicker: IT professionals automate those tasks by building sloppy, insecure, undocumented scripts, just like the non-professionals.   Fun fact: 53% of teams manage 100 or more applications.