Business Units

Overview

The Business Unit feature lets a Cheetah Digital client support multiple brands or subsidiaries within a single Cheetah EDP environment. Each Business Unit operates as an independent entity within the platform, while still providing corporate-level visibility into the entire organization. Business Units are very flexible, and can be configured to meet your specific business requirements.

At an end-user level, individual marketers can be assigned to one or more Business Units. When working within EDP, the marketer can pick from among the set of Business Units to which they have been assigned. This selection, referred to as the Business Unit context, controls what this marketer sees, and to what customers and data they have access. For more details on how to grant user access to a Business Unit, see the Business Units tab of the Admins screen.

Note: Business Units are an optional feature that must be enabled in your account. Please speak to your Services Representative if you have any questions about enabling this feature.

Use Cases

The Business Unit feature enables three key use cases, which are described below in more detail.

Business Unit-specific Attributes

The Business Unit feature enables a client's marketing team to create a single unified person database across all Business Units, while also allowing each Business Unit to populate Attributes with a unique value.

Attributes that are shared across Business Units (referred to as common Attributes) maintain a single instance of the Attribute value that is shared by everyone. For example, you could have a "lifetime purchase" common Attribute that shows a customer's total spend across all Business Units.

Business Unit-specific Attributes maintain a different instance, or copy, of the Attribute value that is stored and managed independently. One Business Unit could store a value in this Attribute, and a different Business Unit could store a different value in this same Attribute. For example, you could have a "subscribed" Attribute that stores separate values per Business Unit, thereby allowing a customer to opt-in / opt-out of receiving marketing emails at a brand level.

In general, the marketer doesn't need to know which Attributes are Business Unit-specific, and which Attributes aren't. The marketer can simply create Segments, write queries, and view reports using just the Attribute name. The platform will automatically display the correct Attribute value, based on the marketer's current Business Unit context.

Row-level Visibility

A single row (i.e., a customer) within the People table can optionally be shared with one or more Business Units.

For example, let's say you use Business Units to define three different brands. A customer can sign up in one, two, or all three of your brands, but still have only a single record within the People table. A marketer working within the context of a single Business Unit will be able to access only the customers who have signed up for that brand.

Corporate-level View

The Business Unit feature provides a holistic view at a corporate level, across all Business Units. A corporate-level marketer who is working in the "all Business Units" context will be able to view and access customers and data across the entire organization.

Access

To access the Business Units screen, select Definitions from the Main Navigation Menu, then select Business Units from the Sub-Category menu.

Additional Resources

Business Unit Guide

Features

The Business Units screen provides the following features related to managing your Business Units:

Searching and Sorting

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Search

The search feature allows you to search for a specified text string anywhere within several different Business Unit fields.

Optionally, in the search field near the top of Business Units screen, enter the desired text string.
Press Enter, or click the search button (magnifying glass icon).
The Business Units screen is refreshed to show only the Business Units that meet your search criteria.
To remove all search criteria, click the remove button ("X" icon).

Sort

The "Sort" drop-down menu allows you to sort the Business Units on a variety of different fields. To sort the list of Business Units, select the desired sort option from this menu.

Business Unit ID (default)
Name
Created Date
Updated Date

Navigation

Once you've found the desired Business Unit, you can navigate to the following other screens:

Click the desired Business Unit to navigate to the Business Unit Details screen.

Create a New Business Unit

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To create a new Business Unit:

Enter the Display Name value for the new Business Unit.
Click create. The "Edit Business Unit" pop-up window is displayed.
The "Display Name" field is populated with the value you entered above; optionally edit this value.
The Internal Name is automatically populated based on the Display Name value. This field is uneditable by default. To edit the Internal Name, check edit internal name. A confirmation dialog box is displayed; click ok. Edit the Internal Name value.
In the "Address" field, optionally enter the address of the Business Unit.
In the "Description" field, optionally enter a description of the Business Unit.
Click save.

View or Edit a Business Unit

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To view or edit the details of a Business Unit:

Search, sort, or filter the Business Units screen as described above.
Click on the desired Business Unit name. The Business Unit Details screen is displayed and populated with all of the information about this Business Unit.

Back to Definitions Overview

Last Updated: April 2022