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INNOVATIVE SYSTEMS: Innovative Systems warns companies of "dirty data" - undermining CRM and eBusiness investments

Story Filed: Friday, March 17, 2000 11:18 AM EST

MAR 17, 2000, M2 Communications - Woking, Surrey -- Innovative Systems, a leading supplier of customer information quality solutions for customer relationship management (CRM) and eBusiness, has today warned companies of the need to perform regular audits on customer data records. Mike Healy, Senior Vice President of European Operations with Innovative Systems, stresses that without performing such audits companies cannot be sure of the accuracy of the data they hold on their customers. By working with "dirty" data they are risking the success of CRM, eBusiness, and direct marketing projects, as well as incurring unnecessary costs he says.

Healy says that companies without a data quality program are working with customer information that may be no more than 60-70 per cent accurate.

"Data audits conducted for our clients show that on average, 12 per cent of the records companies count as customers consist of duplicated, corrupt or incorrect data," he said.

Healy suggests that data integrity improvements of just four per cent, to boost accuracy from say 95 to 99 per cent', can save a company wasting money on implementations that could fail without highly accurate data. He cites call centres as one such example. And such financial savings are before even considering the negative impact on customer goodwill when using poor data.

"Under the banner of CRM, companies certainly understand how quality targeting and profiling methods, via various channels including the Internet, can improve customer service and retention," said Healy. "But what companies fail to recognise is that if the data being worked with is inaccurate to start with, then not only will much of the targeting effort be wasted but real harm caused to customer relationships."

"It's worrying that these companies are willing to commit hundreds of thousands of pounds to sophisticated front-end CRM systems and eBusiness applications but won't commit to performing data audits," continued Healy.

"As a supplier of products and consultancy services in the data quality space, our biggest challenge is helping companies realise the potential damage that can be caused through using inaccurate data in these kinds of applications."

"This isn't a case of sending a couple of mailers to the same person or spelling someone's name wrong. We are talking about feeding an Internet site or call centre database with sensitive customer information, an instance where mistakes really could have a detrimental effect on the company," he said.

Cassandra Millhouse, lead CRM analyst with Ovum, states: "Companies do not always see data quality as an important consideration in IT projects. By failing to recognise that data audits are a vital step in any implementation strategy companies are risking the success of CRM, e-business, application integration and indeed any projects involving the integration of data. When looking at CRM applications in particular, feeding the systems with inaccurate data can do more harm than good."

"Helping people to understand the damage inaccuracies can cause to customer relationships is key to raising the issue of data quality as a major concern for IT managers," she said.

Healy finds the best way of communicating this point is by demonstrating the damage that can be caused to customer relationships: "You've just spent millions of pounds on a new call centre as a further channel to market but didn't carry out an accuracy audit on your data first. Now imagine an incoming call from Mr J Clarke, a valuable existing customer, enquiring about an account he holds with you. If registered on your system as Mr J Clark, not only will the customer become irritated that you cannot locate his details but you run the risk of supplying him with information on another customer," said Healy.

"And imagine how irritated a customer will become if a call centre operator rings to offer them a product or service they already have. The potential damage that can be caused by having an incomplete or inaccurate view of your customers is huge but the cost of getting it right isn't," Healy concluded.

About CRM Accelerator

Innovative Systems' powerful suite of customer information management solutions, the CRM Accelerator(tm) Technology, enables swift and efficient customer quality management for organisations that rely on a complete and accurate understanding of their customers. The product combines the analysis, cleansing and matching of customer information to build databases that enhance sales, marketing and customer service, as well as assisting business-driven programs to enhance revenue, prevent loss and reduce cost.

About Innovative Systems

Innovative Systems, based in Woking, Surrey is the European arm of the highly successful US company Innovative Systems Incorporated of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Many blue-chip companies have invested in its customer information solutions and UK customers include Abbey National, Bradford & Bingley, Avis, Axa Insurance, Birmingham Midshires and the Liverpool Victoria Group.

Customer relationship management (CRM), e-business, legacy/client-server integration, data warehousing, enterprise application integration (EAI), and the data issues thrown up by merger and acquisition activity are all major drivers for Innovative Systems' business.

The company has partnerships with many leading IT companies including IBM, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, EDS and Unisys.

For more information on Innovative Systems, visit the website at http://www.innovativesystems.net

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