Business Insight

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October 28, 2009

Who cares about seven cents?

by Cynthia Williams

Cross-posted at Pitney Bowes Business Insight

News that the USPS will begin assessing fees in January 2010 on mailers who fail the new address quality audits has left mail operation heads scrambling to make sure they are in compliance with all Move Update requirements.

After all, the cost of non-compliance - up to seven cents per piece on a portion of your mailing - can easily bust your budget, especially at a time when everyone is looking for ways to reduce expenses.

Details on the latest USPS effort to curtail Undeliverable-as-Addressed Mail can be found in our earlier post and white paper, The Truth About Move Update. This white paper outlines how samples will be audited and the calculations by which fees will be assessed when mailers exceed the 30% error-rate threshold. Today, however, we want to discuss why it's important not only that you comply - but also how you comply.

After all, if the goal were simply to save seven cents, you could save that and more simply by not sending the mail altogether. But you can't - because the communications you send have a purpose. They help you connect with customers and prospects, collect revenues, meet government regulations and sell products.

While that may sound like motherhood and apply pie, we were surprised to hear about a mailer who decided to outsource move update compliance to a third-party because he felt it was the simplest, easiest way to save seven cents. The USPS was happy because addresses were updated and the piece was delivered. But at the end of the day - the information about those customer moves never makes its way back to the company.

Month after month, bad records are corrected, but the company fails to recognize new opportunities associated with these moves. They fail to target offers correctly because their data is wrong. Eventually, when the customer's "change of address" notice expires, they simply lose touch altogether.

This can occur when you don't receive the new address information, but the same poor result can occur when you have the data and don't update your records. You see - getting and using the data about a customer's move is worth far more than seven cents.

But we understand that it needs to be simple and easy, too. That's why so many mailers are excited about our new VeriMove Access solution. It's an "on demand" offering which means there are no software agreements. No changes to your underlying systems. And no need to acquire and pay for the USPS NCOALink license normally associated with on-site updates. Your addresses get updated and you get to keep the new data.

If you're interested about closing the loop, you'll also want to learn more about ways you can automate the cumbersome, manual process of correcting customer addresses—turning the codes generated from NCOA and ACS into actionable information.

It's a cost-effective way to keep track of customer moves. And yeah, it can help you save that seven cents, too.

Posted by PBBI at 12:30 PM | Comments (1)

Bigger than the sum of its parts

by Kit Hamilton

Cross-posted at Pitney Bowes Business Insight

Business intelligence. Predictive analytics. Data mining. Businesses today are truly recognizing the power that lies in their customer data.

The challenge is in harnessing that power, and doing so efficiently. BeyeNetwork blogger Krish Krishnan captures this issue - particularly as it pertains to the gap in solutions that can help to transform data into actionable information:

With market consolidation, companies are left with a mixed bag of solutions and now need to reassess their investments, new market offerings have not reached enough maturity and open source is not accepted yet as enterprise capable in BI. Where we need to go with this situation is to setup an interoperable solution where the vendor consolidation will not impact current investments. There were third party companies that used to offer these kind of solutions and we need a new series of such technologies to be recreated.

He's right in some ways: companies that want to better understand their customers have in many cases assembled a hodgepodge of different solutions to address different challenges. As the sources of those solutions thrive and consolidate (or wither and disappear), companies that have acquired them are left with a collection of parts built in silos that are condemned to stay in silos unless they find an "interoperable" solution to enable those parts to work in concert.

However, there are solutions providers, including Pitney Bowes Business Insight, who've recognized this issue and have been working steadily to create options - such as the Pitney Bowes Spectrum Technology Platform - to address this very issue.

Rather than sending companies back to "square one", solutions like Spectrum work in tandem with companies' core data quality platforms. Spectrum is designed to facilitate improvements in customer data quality, and augment/assess data for a range of purposes, from Enterprise Tax Management to Global Sentry Watchlist Monitoring to Enterprise Routing for Fleet Logistics. It also provides data quality connectors for SAP and Siebel - again, enabling companies to make the most of the systems they may already have.

We agree with Krish and the others who tout the need for solutions that can grow and change with the companies they serve - and help to provide the tools for enterprise-wide business intelligence and predictive analytics. Today's leading-edge data and software technologies should continue to grow and change to address those specific needs.

To learn how a common data enrichment and management platform can support needs across your entire enterprise, you can read more about our Spectrum Technology Platform.

Posted by PBBI at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2009

Equipping Google and Bing for heavy-duty lifting

Cross-posted at http://li.pbbiblogs.com/

At this year's insights '09 user conference, we shared the stage with Microsoft and demonstrated how organizations can "power up" their Bing Maps to make better decisions using spatial analysis.

Developers were particularly interested in learning how our leading software development kit turned the maps generated through Bing and Google into powerful business tools. In a sense, making it easy for developers to transform cartographic images into true location intelligence.

While there are advantages to comprehensive desktop applications, Web 2.0 does provide an environment where you can interact and modify and your map tile images instantly. So it's not surprising that the use of low-cost, web-generated imagery offered through Bing Maps (formerly Virtual Earth) and Google is common.

What's missing from Bing and Google? Two things. Your data and a powerful analytics engine. That's where SDKs comes into play. No matter how much you can accomplish in a browser, you need to do more if you want to make decisions that will advance your business.

Consider a retailer choosing a site for their next location. After you plot in your existing sites, you may want to overlay competitors, customers, market demographics, use SQL JOIN clauses, create buffers, run point-in-polygon analyses and more - that's where middleware and enterprise mapping comes in to play.

The right developer tools allow you to integrate your own data and conduct complex spatial analysts. A tile-based Rich Internet Application architecture ensures that map retrieval is fast, client side interactivity high, and server-side processing reduced. Designed for enterprise use, the tile-based approach provides for the navigation of sophisticated quantitative data in a consistent and intuitive manner - without sacrificing cartographic quality.

Tile servers are becoming increasing popular for web mapping because they allow the application to pre-render parts of the map and store them as images. The ability to combine web, proxy and private caches based on site and user needs provides developers with many options and possible configurations. In other words, with the right tools your favorite mapping applications can now do the heavy lifting needed to solve today's complex business challenges. If interested, you can learn more and download a free eval of the latest PBBI solution at http://www.pbinsight.com/welcome/mapxtreme7/

Posted by PBBI at 2:30 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2009

Holiday Trends Highlight Increased Role for Location Intelligence

Al Beery and Brian Hill

Over the next few months, consumers will head to the malls, superstores, and in increasing numbers, to their laptops - and retailers will be looking for any edge they can find to increase sales and margins during this holiday shopping season.

Given the sluggish economy, cost pressures and changing consumer behaviors, there has never been a better time to leverage Location Intelligence in your business. Retailers, manufacturers and shippers will find ways this year to move product to more people in smart, cost-effective ways by analyzing the relationship between distribution centers, retail sites, critical customer segments and household locations.

This is especially critical in light of expected shifts in customer behavior. The down economy means that many customers are buying less, they're more price-conscious, and they are more selective about what they buy. Many customers are also buying more online - increasing the role of logistics and fleet management,

Using location intelligence to chart how these trends are impacting your business is often the key to greater profitability. Better Location Intelligence can help you to:

• Better project performance of existing retail sites
• Determine optimal locations for new retail sites
• More effectively allocate marketing dollars
• Chart more efficient delivery routes
• Reassess distribution center locations in light of the increased proportion of direct-to-consumer shipping

In fact, companies that invest in top-quality location intelligence solutions often see positive ROI inside of six months. And many achieve a six-figure return on their investment within the year. Add in the intangibles - happier customers, happier delivery people, and happier customer service personnel - these all result from greater efficiencies, better communications, and better information sharing throughout your organization.

More information on how Location Intelligence and other data-quality improvements can enhance day-to-day and long-term business performance are available in our White Paper Special Delivery: Just-in-Time Savings or by speaking with your local PBBI representative at 800.327.8627 or via email at pbbi.sales@pb.com.

Posted by PBBI at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)