Case Study

Project:

Data cleaning and re-formatting data and building a centralised European database holding both customer and prospect data. The project involved data from 12 different countries in Europe and Scandinavia.

Organisation Type:

A major international US business.

Client situation:

The company had undertaken several acquisitions over the last few years across Europe. This meant that it had inherited customer and prospect data that was held on several different legacy systems. As a result there was no standardised format for holding data, from one country to the next, and no specific management process in place to ensure data quality at point of entry.

Our approach: 

1. Data Audit to evaluate the quality of the data and the range of formats that the data was held in.
2. Data was reformatted to conform to one single format for all countries.
3. All data was matched and cleaned.
4. All data of poor quality was identified, and relevant actions taken to either improve the data, or eliminate it if totally unusable for mailings or other contact.
5. De-duplication of all data was carried out within each file, between all files, and between and across all brands.
6. All data sources were consolidated into one central database for European Marketing.

Solution:

Creation of single, database to hold customer and prospect data for all countries.

Result:

1. Savings of $2million on mailing costs.
2. An understanding of the true value of the customer.
3. Identification of up-sell and cross-sell opportunities to generate increased sales.
4. Improved targeting of new customers to deliver sales and profit.
5. Improved customer perception of the company.