Hi Varun,
USD is (among other things) a way of front-ending multiple applications and applying searches across an enterprise to enable the finding, and consistent presentation of associated information.
It really comes into its own with:
* large established businesses (especially those with a history of acquisitions / stand-alone business units - who are as a result currently running a myriad of systems)
* businesses who are trying to e.g. consolidate to one contact centre / or trying to get an Omni-channel view of a customer.
* Any businesses providing a range of services that are needing a range of specialist applications to support them.
These criteria do not apply to any specific industry - instead look at the:
* customer's ownership history
* the number of current critical business applications (especially those reliant on multiple legacy systems that have been around for 15+ years)
* sales and service strategy of the business (centralisation, mobility, field services etc)
* the rate of turnover of sales and service staff
The industry specific characteristics I'd be looking for are:
* the nature of the data needed for the particular industry e.g. utilities, finance have a need for large transactional databases which makes USD particularly applicable - they still need CRM but they are unlikely to be able to get rid of their core transactional /technical systems
* the diversity of the data needing to be managed (which may benefit from a range of different base technology to optimise performance)
* the need to leverage external databases (think in terms of big data) to maintain industry competitiveness
Business benefits of a USD implementation include:
* Reduced handle time e.g. in a contact centre
* Reduced training cost for new employees/contractors
* Increased business flexibility
* Increased accuracy and customer satisfaction (from having all necessary data at ones' fingertips)
