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‘TO GIVE’ A MEANING TO DATA
There’s hardly a word in the English language that has seen its meaning change as much as ‘data’. We look at where it started, what it means now, and why getting it right is the most important priority for any business.
Originally a Latin phrase meaning ‘to give’, only a few decades ago, the word data was virtually an unknown concept outside mathematics and engineering where it was known as a ‘given’ – a piece of information we should all accept as correct.
Now, everyone talks about data and our understanding has gone beyond pure lists of information into databases, data analysis and data quality.
So important has data become to every aspect of life: business, politics, economics, environment, education; that key decisions are based on it, affecting the future of people’s lives and companies’ success.
Despite this, many businesses are very careless about data. Research shows that between 15% and 40% of the records in the average company’s in-house database are inaccurate. That means that business decisions based on the data are wrong by that amount too.
Data quality isn’t just about having a correct address, it’s about business intelligence and best use of resources, whether sending out a mailshot, assessing the potential of a proposed new product, or targeting the sales team.
EFFICIENCY
The recession has focussed many business people’s minds on efficiency and at PAR, that’s what we provide.
There’s little sense in manually checking your in-house database when we can do it for you with data match and cleansing.
Why make the inaccuracies worse by inputting wrong data when you can so easily check and enhance the information using PAR’s One-by-One plug-in?
And why try to manage a database containing thousands of records when we can automatically monitor it for you on a monthly basis?
“Targeting a sales team to input every data field accurately is pointless and a poor use of resources,” says Helene Dalhgren, Product Manager Data Quality, PAR SE. “A company in Sweden realised it takes a sales person 15 minutes to find out the right things about a customer. This can be done by an automatic updating system at less than a tenth of the cost.”
Gisle Jentoft, CEO of SuperOffice AS, which has recently appointed PAR to help manage data quality, agrees. He says: “We are interested in solutions to help our sales and marketing team improve data quality with the least amount of effort, and are happy to have found this with PAR”
MORE OF THE SAME
The economic downturn has affected many businesses and sales teams need to know which of their potential customers are still trading and which are not.
They also need to know about successful, expanding businesses by analysing their best customers and finding ‘more of the same’.
 We help businesses in both these areas, by using PAR Selection to enable them to search the business universe to source and select companies similar to their existing customers. So sophisticated is this product, that specific industries, sectors and size of company can be selected, whilst simultaneously screening out existing customers from the search.
CRM-INTEGRATION
One of the biggest steps forward for the management of data is the use of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems. But however clever a CRM system is, it will fail if incorrect data is input into it.
At PAR, we’ve recognised that and have developed plug-ins for the most popular CRM systems. Our plug-ins enable users of Microsoft Dynamics, SuperOffice and soon, salesforce.com, to link seamlessly with our 22 million record pan-European EuroContactPool database.
For any company that wants to thrive, data quality is not a choice, it’s something we all have to accept is correct. In fact, it’s a ‘given’.
Feel free to give us a call or email us today!
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ON A ROLL WITH SWISS DATA
Our new partnership with one of Switzerland’s leading direct marketing companies will add 450,000 company records and more than 2.5 million new items of data to the EuroContactPool database.
PAR has announced a new partnership which will significantly increase the EuroContactPool database by adding in high-quality Swiss company data.
We have partnered with KünzlerBachmann Directmarketing AG– one of Switzerland’s top direct marketing companies which holds the country’s widest business database and the only Swiss DM company to be ISO and Good Priv@cy-certified.
Under the agreement, KünzlerBachmann will add its company data into EuroContactPool and will sell EuroContactPool’s pan-European offering to its international clients.
DATA QUALITY
With more than 40 years’ experience in direct marketing, KünzlerBachmann has added an IT operation and developed its analytical services to meet the needs of today’s marketer. Data quality remains the company’s key aim.
Roland Meyer, CMO at KünzlerBachmann, says: “We never talk to our customers about quantity of data, only quality”. “We often find that when customers ask several suppliers for data counts, our counts are often lower than our competitors’, but we don’t mind at all because we’re in a measurable business and what matters is never quantity, it’s always quality.”
SYNERGIES
PAR took the decision to partner with KünzlerBackmann after meeting with several Swiss data suppliers.
Per Löfgren, International Product Director at PAR, says: “We are very impressed with KünzlerBachmann’s focus on data quality, which is what our customers are looking for. The addition of high quality Swiss company data significantly enhances our pan-European services and we believe that Swiss companies will be very interested in what EuroContactPool has to offer.”
KünzlerBachmann will be targeting its international clients with EuroContactPool. “We expect the initial interest to come from global suppliers,” says Roland Meyer.
“There are many international companies in Zurich and Geneva; now we can offer them one address for the whole of European business data.” “There are great synergies between the two companies and we’re very excited about the potential of this partnership. There is a strategic benefit and added value for both companies.”
Feel free to give us a call or email us today!
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