Article

Managing data successfully: smart address management

Riverland Reply develops intelligent solutions to adequately manage a constant flow of new data in best quality.

Competitiveness & data quality

The Covid-19 pandemic provided digitalization with an enormous boost, which also impacted the steady growth in online trade. Companies that manage their data using modern and innovative solutions are evidently in the fast lane. This leads to a huge increase in competitiveness.

At present, fragmented data collection and evaluation is not uncommon. At the same time, companies are encountering a flood of data with vast potential – if it is processed correctly. Ensuring high data quality is one of the greatest challenges of a company with a heterogeneous IT system landscape. It should be able to be guaranteed despite the different needs of the various corporate areas and in the face of different regulatory requirements globally.

What is data management?

Data is a valuable resource that is used in all of a company’s business processes with the aim of generating maximum output. In other words, optimal effects should be realised in operational business through the management of data in order to increase productivity. Consequently, data forms the basis for economic success. Smart data management is also essential for customer data – and explicitly for address management. Companies are often faced with the problem that their customer addresses are incorrect in their CRM system, meaning that they lose leads and hence sales.

The most important reasons for incorrect customer data in CRM systems

Duplicates

Customers are entered several times

Ambiguous field designations

Field definitions in CRM systems enable individual interpretations

Market-specific requirements

Different legal regulations do not allow a one-fits-all solution

Heterogeneous IT landscape

Large number of different systems

Invalid addresses

Entry of addresses that do not exist

Incorrectly assigned fields

Fields from system A do not correspond with system B

Therefore, to adequately manage a permanent influx of new data, smart solutions are required. Innovative technologies use the potential of big data, also enabling smart address management to be achieved.

The route to smart address management as a success factor?

Riverland Reply has identified four key steps for this purpose:

Process Consulting

Analysis of IT processes:

Every company has its own structures and needs, which need to be illuminated decisively in a critical process analysis. Based on this, individual scenarios arise with a recommendation for the next steps to be taken with a view to smart address management.

The identification of duplicates, the handling of ambiguous field designations and the consideration of market-specific requirements are among the common challenges in address management.

The creation of tools and methods, e.g. empathy maps, personas and user stories, help with the agile and clear capture of the findings resulting from the exploration phase. Empathy maps provide a thorough overview of the perceptions and actions of a user group. Personas illustrate the characteristics of a particular target group and represent its wishes, aims and expectations. With the help of user stories, requirements with respect to the technology that creates added value for users can be recorded.

The following questions can be answered:

What user groups can be defined?
What does the user experience look like in detail?
What problems and challenges arise?

Technology Experts

Selection of appropriate technologies:

While there are countless technologies available, it is important to identify company-specific technologies. All potential risks must also be taken into account.

Comprehensive requirement management plays an important role in finding a customized technological solution. Using the agile approach, requirements are queried several times in the course of the project, priorities are adapted where necessary and any changes are coordinated.

In addition, it is crucial to be familiar with the service offer of every single technology and to analyze the advantages and disadvantages. This is the only way to guarantee the perfect choice of technology. Riverland Reply carries out an extensive scan of providers, employing years of experience in the evaluation. During the analysis, the following factors are among those considered:

Duplicate detection and correction
Integration in the existing CRM or e-commerce system
Accumulation of external data
Market focus
Partnerships and experience

The combination of the requirements determined and the detailed analysis of potential providers provides the ideal basis for “matchmaking”. This means that the needs of the customer are compared with the service offer of providers and “matched” accordingly in the event of strong concurrence.

Coordination

Implementation of technologies:

A change to existing IT infrastructure requires very special care so that interconnectivity remains ensured.

To successfully embed the new technology in an existing system landscape, there are three important success factors that need to be considered:

Consideration of all stakeholders
Effective communication
Tracking

All stakeholders play a decisive role in the introduction of new technologies. What is important is that interested parties are involved to the same extent from the start and that statutory requirements are taken into account. The respective touchpoints between stakeholders and technology always need to be taken into account.

If communication contains gaps or is even entirely absent, this can lead to lost information, misinterpretations and, ultimately, frustration and conflicts, which has a considerable negative impact on the success of the project. All of this should be avoided – by means of effective communication. In order to transmit relevant information and enable active and efficient dialog, organizational talent is not the only thing that is required; the selection of suitable communication channels is also crucial. This results in a transparent and efficient implementation process.

The documentation and tracking of the defined stories and tasks, for instance with the help of Kanban boards, enables both performance measurement through reporting as well as seamless traceability. In addition, erroneous developments can be quickly identified and revised.

Service Support

Monitoring and service operations:

Supplementary service activities ensure a smooth course and can transfer new requirements into processes.

Alongside technical support in the form of system maintenance and training offers, environmental factors must be monitored, as these may change and so lead to altered requirements. With its comprehensive support, Riverland Reply ensures that such changes are continuously taken into account and that existing structures are modified flexibly. In addition, problems that occur are immediately identified and analyzed, and appropriate solutions are initiated. In this way, even after implementation it can be guaranteed that high quality requirements are met and sustainable address management is ensured by the Service Support.

The benefits of smart address management

The new address management solution is individually customized for a company and corresponds to their individual needs. Modern technology, which is integrated in the existing IT landscape, supports this journey. Actively managed address management does not guarantee success but does make a crucial contribution to ensuring corporate prosperity through an increase in in-house productivity. Incorrect customer data can be reduced to a considerable degree or even eliminated. The accuracy of leads and the realisation of higher sales are the consequence.

Successful address management with Riverland Reply

Reply was named a “Leader” in the field of CRM and customer experience implementation services worldwide by the leading IT market research and strategy consulting company Gartner in its Magic Quadrant.

Based on the four steps identified by Riverland Reply combined with the resulting optimal decision for the individual use of a technology, smart address management can be introduced successfully. From advice to implementation – Riverland Reply would be happy to assist with the optimisation of address management.

Acknowledgment

CRM and CX with Reply

Reply's approach to the CX journey is based on a “symphony orchestra” which ensures that every element is connected and optimised – from the CX architecture, to digital design and UX. This approach allows Reply to understand, design and implement complex CRM and Customer Experience solutions.

Riverland Reply

Riverland Reply is specialized in consulting end-to-end customer-oriented solutions and strategies. In addition, Riverland Reply supports its customers in strategic IT decisions, implementation of defined solutions and production execution. The company combines in-depth knowledge of digital Customer Experience with the full potential of cloud native technologies. This expertise allows Riverland Reply to remove the barriers between a product-based technology and a full custom implementation. Knowing that Customer Experience in the digital era must be highly flexible to be adapted to different industries, Riverland Reply advises clients in automotive, transportation, logistics and finance industry. The strong partnership and close collaboration with Oracle made Riverland Reply the experts of Oracle’s Customer Experience products.