Researcher profiles and IDs can be used to:
Reduce author ambiguity
Many authors have similar names. Author Identifiers distinguish between these names by assigning each author a unique number and grouping together all of the documents written by that author.
Additionally, author names can be formatted differently. For example, the same author could appear in one document as Lewis, M; in another as Lewis, M.J; and in another as Lewis, Michael. Author Identifiers match the documents an author and groups these name variants together so that authors, even if cited differently, are identified with their specific papers.
This helps you find and recognize an author, despite variations in name spelling.
Improve research impact
Establishing a unique researcher identity is an important step to improving your research impact. There are a variety of options for creating a unique identity, with ResearcherID, ORCID and Scopus Author Identifier being highly recommended.