Norwich Union - building a customer development database
This
project, given the code name MIDAS, is very important
for Norwich Union |
|
Customer Development
Technological advances have allowed companies to understand
their customers to a level unimagined only 5 years ago. Creating
a fully integrated customer development plan based on the
'one-to-one' communication principle, is now a reality for
many companies in financial services. With this increased
ability to improve communications with our customers, has
also come the opportunity to increase the understanding of
what the customer wants and provide the products demanded.
The main opportunity however has also been to achieve this
whilst realising the benefits of reduced contact and distribution
costs.
Norwich Union
Norwich Union recognised that if it fully embraced
the concept of customer development through direct marketing
to a growing direct customer base, there would be huge potential
for increased business. It had for some years experimented
with the concepts of direct marketing, primarily in the field
of direct mail and inbound telephone marketing. The problem
here had been their reliance on legacy computer systems that
acted independently of each other and were organised at policy
level. They had a need to take that all-important step of
creating a truly integrated customer database.
An integrated database solution
Having made a decision to embrace the potential technology
available, they formed a dedicated team to progress the project
with the code name MIDAS. It was important that the board
was fully behind the project and therefore a sound business
case needed to be made before full financial backing could
be given. Kognitio, as acknowledged experts in this field,
provided significant consultancy input to the project to help
win the business case.
With the backing of the board, the team set about the creation
of a database that would ultimately bring together over 20
separate computer source systems. The integration of these
systems would enable Norwich Union for the first time to view
and interrogate the computer at customer level.
The objective
The ultimate objective was to understand the customer
base and from this create highly targeted direct marketing
campaigns. By refining the level of contact and increasing
the effectiveness of each campaign, a reduction in marketing
expenditure would create a proportional increase in return.
If this wasn't hard enough, the first phase of the project
had to be completed in 9 months from start to finish within
a tight budget. The margin for error was very little indeed.
Phase one consisted of the design of the new database, the
extraction, analysis, migration, cleansing and fusion of data
to populate it, and development of software to keep it updated.
"Speed was very important for
this project. Too many projects take too long to deliver and
lose the support of business users."
Steve Gray, Director of MIDAS, Norwich Union
Building the database
The next decision was whether to develop the database
in-house or find outside contractors to complete the task.
As with all financial services companies in the current environment,
there was little spare capacity in the IT department to divert
resources to such a major undertaking.
Completing the task in 9 months could only be achieved by
involving the resources of an outside supplier. An open invitation
to tender for the business resulted in several companies bidding
and Kognitio being awarded the contract.
"We chose Kognitio because they
demonstrated an understanding of the commercial issues surrounding
the business case and an ability to deliver a practical technical
solution. This is a unique combination of skills and expertise."
Steve Gray, Director of MIDAS, Norwich Union
Project Competition
The new database went live on the due date and within
the planned budget. Based on Kognitio's customer and management
information system 'CaMIS', Norwich Union then chose a 'front-end'
software through which the contents could be viewed.
"This project, given the code
name MIDAS, is very important for Norwich Union. Since we
need to use a wide range of different software applications,
we decided very early in the process that it was essential
that we have one industry standard database to work from,
which can feed all the software analysis packages we choose
in the future."
Steve Gray, Director of MIDAS, Norwich Union
The future
Future phases of the MIDAS project involve further
development and integration of the database, with both internal
and external systems. Kognitio are continuing to ensure that
this takes place within the proposed time frame and within
budget.
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