Data Strategy articles from January 2007

Data Strategy archives from January 2007

Head into new year with a fresh attitude.
January 16, 2007... New year, new job? It used to be customary to return to work, letter of resignation in hand. Having the chance to reflect on your current position during the holiday often leads to typical new year resolutions - stop tolerating that awful...

BSkyB sues EDS over failed CRM project.
January 16, 2007... The long-running dispute between satellite broadcaster BSkyB and outsourced services provider EDS has finally reached the London. Dating from a contract signed in late 2000, proceedings have been taking place in the High Court of Justice,...

IN BRIEF: Nissan builds pan-European database.(Brief article)
January 16, 2007... Nissan Europe is investing up to #6m a year into a new centralised database to drive all of its direct marketing across Europe. The programme is being developed and executed by Tullo Marshall Warren. The agency won the account following a...

Banks refute claims of e-fraud cover-up.
January 16, 2007... No single bank has yet cracked how to tackle online fraud, according to evidence presented to the Lords Committee investigating Internet security in December, although to one witness says "certain banks are attacked more in the UK than...

European data sharing 'threat to public privacy'.
January 16, 2007... Exchanges of data between police forces and judicial bodies represent a growing threat to individual privacy, according to the European Data Protection Supervisor. With a working party of the European Parliament currently looking at changes...

Marketing Databasics bosses seal purchase of Results Europe.
January 16, 2007... Marketing Databasics has acquired Results Europe from DLG for an undisclosed sum. The company, which was recently bought by investment fund Indicia Group - headed up by former Wegener DM chief David Perkins - is understood to be taking...

IN BRIEF: Protegrity patents database intrusion detection method.(Brief article)
January 16, 2007... Data security management software provider Protegrity Corporation has gained a patent for a new method for detecting intrusions in a database. The system is based on monitoring of access rates by users, defined as the number of records each...

Data centre migrations risk reduced by launch.
January 16, 2007... DCMI has launched in the UK with a software solution aimed at reducing the timescale, risk and costs of data centre migrations. The company has already signed a relationship with systems integrator Unisys, enabling it to access DCMI's...

Firms warned: beware 'worthless' data mining.
January 16, 2007... UK firms are falling into the trap of mining data without any clear business objectives, which can lead to the results being worthless, according to predictive analytics firm SPSS. In response, SPSS has launched a paper advising companies...

IN BRIEF: DSM turns to DataFlux to classify spend data.(Brief article)
January 16, 2007... DSM Nutritional Products has appointed DataFlux to classify its internationally coded spend and materials data. The technology provided by DataFlux will be used to put into practice a high-quality classification validation system, which will...

Storage solution for EC data law.
January 16, 2007... Data warehousing provider Teradata has partnered with Capgemini to offer a solution helping telecommunication network and service providers comply with the European Union's new Data Retention Directive, which will come into force in September...

Data breaches top 25.5m personal files.
January 16, 2007... Nearly 25.5 million personal records have been exposed to potential theft and fraud in the UK, over the past 12 months; a figure that includes data security breaches on the Internet and poor practice over paper-based personal records. ...

Non-EU visitors to UK will face ID Card clampdown.
January 16, 2007... Foreign nationals from outside the European Union will be forced to register identity details when they apply for visas to stay in the UK, as part of the national ID Card scheme to be launched in 2008. The scheme will mean that foreigners...

IN BRIEF: Zantaz purchases Singlecast systems.(Brief article)
January 16, 2007... Zantaz, a provider of content archiving and electronic disclosure solutions, has purchased data classification, policy management and supervision technologies developed by software company Singlecast. The acquisition will enable Zantaz to...

EuroDirect unveils market research Cameo extensive.
January 16, 2007... EuroDirect is extending its Cameo product with the launch of Cameo with Attitude, a market-research tool that the company claims can save thousands of pounds on marketing budgets by improving targeting and reducing the time taken to test a...

Data errors hit Tax Credits for #1.7bn.
January 16, 2007... Data errors and fraud led to between #1.24bn and #1.74 bn in expenditure on Child and Working Tax Credits, according to an internal analysis team at Her Majesty's Customs & Excise (HMRC). More than half of this amount (#870m) is estimated to...

IN BRIEF: Heathrow trials ImiSense realtime 'no fly' data scheme.(Brief article)
January 16, 2007... Testing of realtime decision making by UK authorities and airlines on travellers flagged as potential security risks is up and running at Heathrow. The miSense project is linked to the Internet Check-In Scanning System operated at ten UK...

PAF revamps as 'revenue neutral'.
January 16, 2007... Consultation on the three-year programme of price changes to Royal Mail's Postcode Address File (PAF) closed as Data Strategy went to press. Following a series of workshops and formal notification of the termination of existing agreements,...

Data is no longer part of a secret society.
January 16, 2007... I have had many conversations this month about the turnover within data professionals in this industry. Some have seen this as a sign of sectoral distress, citing tough competitive conditions for suppliers, increasing competition for data...

LETTER: Commercially-minded analysts a rare breed.(Letter to the editor)
January 16, 2007... Huw Davies makes some interesting points in 'Researchers and analysts: it's good to talk', (DS November). His point regarding the analysts and research departments and their apparent opposing agenda needs to be further explored. ...

LETTER: Changing face of NHS brings new challenges.(Letter to the editor)
January 16, 2007... The job of the pharmaceutical sales representative is changing dramatically, evolving into a far more strategic and valuable account management position. As such, the representative needs constant access to up to date data that provides...

Proving that propensity can mean profit.
January 16, 2007... Segmentation, propensity scores and regression modelling are not terms you often hear from sales people. In my world, we spend many hours and not inconsiderable sums of money finding people who are interested in our products and who may well...

SITUATIONS VACANT: Working solution.
January 16, 2007... Data industry recruitment is caught between a rock and a hard place, with not enough people being lured into the sector, and experienced staff lacking the necessary skills to progress further. David Reed reports Careers adviser is not...

CUSTOMER INSIGHT: Inappropriate measures.
January 16, 2007... Customer insight analysis often flounders on the fact that what people say they want and what they will happily accept are poles apart. Emma Rubach investigates Customer insight is big business these days, however, perhaps surprisingly,...

CASE STUDY: Speedy resolution.
January 16, 2007... Newcastle City Council needed urgent action to cure the city's traffic management headache - enter ESRI's GIS system Newcastle City Council (NCC) serves a population of around 270,000 people and over 111,000 households. However, as...

DATA FINANCIALS: Supply chain key link in Sainsbury's revival.
January 16, 2007... All you ever wanted to know about making profit from data but were too afraid to ask A decade ago, the marketing slogan for British Airways was "the world's favourite airline". Based on its interim financial results for 26 weeks to...

Why online form filling is not such a taxing issue after all.
January 16, 2007... HM Revenue & Customs has found that 77 per cent of Internet users find filling in their tax return easier on the Web. The discovery from a TNS phone survey of 1,015 adults, comes as the January 31 deadline approaches for the 9 million...

ONLINE DATA SERVICES: Are you being ad served?
January 16, 2007... Money may be flowing into online advertising, but website owners are often slow to adopt the necessary tools to bolster visitor profiling, says David Reed When everybody talked "about the Internet years ago, they said it would identify...

Legal column: January 2007.
January 16, 2007... Dr David Taylor, VP of data security strategies at data encryption specialist Protegrity Inc (www.protegrity.com) Outsourcing services and customer relationship management (CRM) to third parties can make good business sense, but corporate...

The back room: Director of statistics resowing some acorns.(Interview)
January 16, 2007... Data Strategy talks to data practitioners who toll unnoticed behind the scenes Q What is your name and job title? David Harris, director of statistics for CACI Marketing Solutions. I run a small product development team, responsible...

The bottom line: Why Christmas spirit is now such a ghostly idea.
January 16, 2007... Bah, humbug! Christmas may already be a memory but, by late November, it was becoming a nuisance. Maybe it was the fact that Harrods opened its Christmas store on August 4 that led to celebration fatigue. Or perhaps it was those curiously...