ABA MAN GmbH is currently dissatisfied with its customer information database in Microsoft Dynamics, which contains about 17'000 contacts in 11'000 companies. Although ABA believes that the database is of great value because of the contacts it contains, the master data is constantly changing, and it is difficult to keep track of the contacts manually. For example, if addresses change, the company has to search for new postal addresses or other contact data on platforms such as LinkedIn and SHAB. Currently, there is no uniform procedure for where the data is collected.

To evaluate the optimal solution for ABA MAN GmbH, the different customer data sources on the market will be examined and relevant API providers will be compared. Furthermore, the data sources of the respective companies are researched, and the costs of the providers are compared. In addition, a focus is placed on the administrative effort that the integration of an API solution requires from the providers offering one. The main focus is on an API solution that can be directly connected to MS-Dynamics. If this is not possible, a manual tool from a reliable provider is also desirable.

A two-phase plan is proposed to ensure rapid improvement of the overall data quality situation in ABA, including an immediate solution for finding contact data and a semi-automated data collection strategy in the second phase. First phase: The first phase of the implementation plan is supposed to provide an instant improvement in data quality when searching for contacts or companies. Before implementing an API, employees should search for company information on SHAB to ensure high data quality and provide free access to company records. If an employee is looking for personal information, Local.ch and LinkedIn are the preferred destinations . Second phase: For the implementation of an API, an integration of the LinkedIn API for company and employee addresses is suggested. The LinkedIn API, together with the Local.ch API, is the best-priced solution. In addition, the implementation effort for the LinkedIn Sales Navigator Plus is the lowest of all API providers. These advantages are now combined with another reliable data source such as Local.ch to check for exceptions such as missing addresses to have a strong basis for a consistent and correct database.