Value-First Data - Feb 17, 2026

Chris Carolan, Casey Hawkins, and Klemen Hrovat continue the Unified Customer View series with a focus on team alignment, enablement, and efficiency. A central thread is validating the view with the people who actually use it — and distinguishing IT's role in maintaining the system from the user-focused role of making sure it genuinely improves workflows. They lay out the payoff of a working UCV: faster access to customer information, less duplicate data entry, smoother handoffs, cross-functional visibility, proactive intervention against churn, and clearer expansion opportunities. The practical guidance centers on a culture of data ownership and transparency: automate the low-hanging data-gathering for quick wins, document the desired "100%" view and bring impacted teams together on naming conventions (a common fragmentation point), keep end users involved with a real voice, and focus first on what the data needs to be before worrying about which system it comes from.