Data Strategy articles from July 2006

Data Strategy archives from July 2006

LEADER: A loss of trust costs more than hard cash.
July 18, 2006... "The managing director of one FTSE 500 company I know asked how big the fine for breaching the data protection law was. It is #5,000, if the company is ever caught. He said he didn't care about that and wouldn't clean up the company's act."...

First Direct founder quits for Data Lateral.
July 18, 2006... The man who spearheaded the launch of First Direct, former commercial director Peter Simpson, has quit to join Data Lateral as chairman. Simpson, who spent 13 years as commercial director at the pioneering 24- hour phone bank, was most...

EMC switches from platform-centric to services architecture.
July 18, 2006... EMC is internally developing and acquiring technology to support a shift from platform-centric computing to services-oriented architecture. The information service provider will move from platform- centric infrastructure built around an...

Experian snaps up Eiger Systems.
July 18, 2006... Experian has boosted its expertise in data integrity, and strengthened its position in the payments arena, with the acquisition of Eiger Systems - a market-leading provider of bank account validation and payment-processing software. The...

EDF Energy picks CACI to build prospect file.
July 18, 2006... EDF Energy, one of the UK's largest energy companies, has appointed CACI to create and host a prospect database, supporting acquisition and upgrades through multichannel marketing campaigns. Built on consumer and geodemographic data from...

Vodafone Ireland in SoftCo link to bolster call-handling.
July 18, 2006... Vodafone Ireland has implemented SoftCo Workflow to streamline the handling of over 15,000 weekly non-telephony contacts in its customer services centre. The manual system for handling and resolving customer queries at Vodafone's Dundalk...

Inchcape adopts performance management tool.
July 18, 2006... Inchcape, the automotive services group, is aiming to reduce its use of paper and improve business intelligence by installing performance management technology. The company, which has 90 car dealerships across the country, says its previous...

Huntleigh deal to bolster salesforce.
July 18, 2006... UK healthcare equipment group Huntleigh Technology has equipped its salesforces with a handheld customer management solution to cope with the complexity of selling to National Health Service (NHS) and other healthcare providers. The NHS...

Wegener DM in Unica link to access Affinium.
July 18, 2006... Wegener DM has formed an international partnership with Unica to use enterprise marketing management software Affinium. The tool is used in integrated multichannel campaigns to offer high levels of personalisation. Wegener DM chief...

Bristol University hires GB Group to boost donations.
July 18, 2006... The University of Bristol is overhauling its database of overseas graduates to boost donations from them. GB Group has been tasked with ensuring names, addresses and contact numbers for international graduates are accurate. This data will be...

Help the Aged in donor list revamp.
July 18, 2006... Help the Aged is overhauling its entire donor database in an effort to improve the efficiency of its direct communications. The charity has briefed data solutions firm Experian to implement a range of data integrity services, which will...

IBM sets sights on global travel industry.(Industry overview)
July 18, 2006... IBM is targeting the travel industry with the launch of a major sales, services and marketing support system to help companies better understand their target customers, sell more effectively and address customer gripes. Delivered through...

Sunopsis deal to integrate Trillium Software solution.
July 18, 2006... Data-integration specialist Sunopsis is to integrate and resell data- quality solution TS Quality, in a deal with Harte-Hanks business Trillium Software. TS Quality is designed to support an organisation's data-quality requirements within...

Beta Systems rolls out back-up suite.
July 18, 2006... Beta Systems Software, a supplier of high-performance solutions for mass data management, is releasing Harbor Enterprise NSM 7.1. The data protection and disaster recovery suite is claimed to provide fast, reliable back-up and recovery of...

Salesforce to unveil data-sharing system.
July 18, 2006... Salesforce.com, the on-demand customer management company, is launching a product which will help businesses to share customer management and marketing services with partners. Dubbed Partnerforce, the scheme is designed to give firms an...

EuroContactPool releases Spanish consumer data.
July 18, 2006... Brand owners hunting customers in Spain now have a new online resource following EuroContactPool's decision to boost its Spanish data. EuroContactPool is linking up with Schober PDM Iberia to supply the information, which includes...

Unica software to 'automate' drives.
July 18, 2006... Unica has added Affinium NetInsight to its suite of marketing management solutions, giving companies insight into customers' buying behaviour by integrating data from different channels. The use of Affinium NetInsight in conjunction with...

Using insight 'the responsible thing to do'.
July 18, 2006... The direct marketing industry is finally playing its role in the green wave sweeping across the UK. Of course, the industry has been called upon in the past to reduce wastage, and the DMA (UK)'s Producer Responsibility for Direct Mail and...

LETTER: Let list buyer determine level of cleaning needed.(Letter to the editor)
July 18, 2006... I read 'Airing dirty data' with interest (DS June), and agree with most commentators that a list owner should clean its data periodically so as to not lose the trust of the brokerage community and end buyers. Data users will rapidly...

LETTER: Why business intelligence technology is so crucial.(Letter to the editor)
July 18, 2006... The arrival of low-cost, easy-to-deploy business intelligence (BI) technology should result in the end of many standard business excuses. Firstly, rather than traditional, static, two-dimensional reports that are inflexible, provide little real...

Firms shun credit-risk data at their peril.
July 18, 2006... You'd think that in a climate of global economic slowdown, rising levels of insolvency and the increasing tendency towards late payment, businesses would be taking a more active approach to credit risk. But this is not the case. Too few...

Getting away it?
July 18, 2006... Some industry experts put the number of companies in breach of permission marketing regulations as high as 90 per cent. While the law might be slow to punish them, consumers will not be so lenient. By David Reed If consumers are a...

SINGLE CUSTOMER VIEW: For the record.
July 18, 2006... Some companies have strange ideas about what constitutes a single customer view, believing it's simply a matter of deduping name-and- address files. Equally worrying is the notion that it's just for marketers to pursue, rather than the entire...

CASE STUDY: Invoice of a nation.
July 18, 2006... With postal volumes falling, Danish Post spotted a business opportunity and turned to BancTec to deliver electronic invoices to government Having served the Danish market for over 380 years, the Danish Post started to feel the pinch when...

Accountancy talks to place value on data.
July 18, 2006... The data industry is holding talks with accountancy firms as part of plans to finally resolve the struggle to get databases onto balance sheets. Iain Lovatt, chairman of the IDM Data Council, has opened discussions with the Institute of...

Experian launches alternative ER for Ireland.
July 18, 2006... Companies targeting the Irish market have received a major boost by Experian's plans to launch an alternative to the Electoral Register. The data giant is launching National Canvasse Ireland, after its research revealed that only 5 per...

Businesses warned over rapid rise of 'Web-jacking'.
July 18, 2006... Computer forensics experts are urging data professionals to investigate the use of 'Web-jacking' in industrial espionage, following reports of this crime sweeping the Internet. National computer forensics firm Zentek Forensics claims...

ADDRESS MANAGEMENT: Code of conduct.(Company overview)
July 18, 2006... Now that the Postcode Address File has a life way beyond the confines of the postal market, the data industry needs to decide quickly how best to manage its use, says David Reed As national treasures go, the Postcode Address File (PAF) is...

Legal column: Phil James answers pressing legal questions.
July 18, 2006... Darling. It's Sean on the line. He says he wants to speak to you. "The name's Bond, James Bond." "Sorry love - I can't talk at the moment, I'm just peeling the veg." No, this is not the script from Cubby Broccoli's new film featuring...

Why databases are not intangible assets.
July 18, 2006... How highly is data valued in your organisation? Chances are it will be considered important as a business tool, vital to decision-making, customer support and management, and essential for billing and financial reporting. But it is...