Introduction: Data Integrity The single greatest benefit of centralizing an associations data management is data integrity. One of the cardinal rules of database design is that no redundancy is allowed (normalization). That is, no piece of data should ever be repeated within the database. When an organization is operating multiple databases for the same group of people (for example, a membership database with a separate meeting registration database), they are by definition breaking this rule and working outside a best recommended practices. This leads to major data integrity issues. A centralized database means that each member has one primary record, with primary contact information. Thus when there is a change required (like a new phone number or email address), there is only one change required. In those instances where an organization is forced to use multiple databases, very few organization leverage utilizing automated process with auditing to keep information in synchronization. Instead, they are manually updating both databases.
Valuable broad marketing info/history With all the information centralized, it is much easier to develop reports that show the broad range of activities that your members are engaged in. With multiple databases, records need to be matched, de-duping needs to occur, and the opportunity for duplicate records is greatly increased.
Training Another benefit of a centralized system is that the learning curve for users is greatly reduced. If all processes (membership, meetings, products, etc.) are in the same database, then users need only learn one system, not multiple systems.
Support With a centralized system, support is focused on one product. With many databases, even if they are built on the same platform, separate support, and tuning is required for each.
