London, UK – 8th December 2010: The Single Customer View (SCV) is fast becoming mandatory and organisations that don’t pursue it will get left behind. That was the stark message delivered at the recent seminar on Data Strategies for Business Transformation, hosted by Data Strategy magazine and sponsored by Evaxyx.

With speakers from nPower, as well as Data Strategy and Evaxyx themselves, the London seminar was always expected to light a few fireworks and it didn’t disappoint. Hosting the event and providing the context to the seminar itself, Data Strategy editor David Reed listed the three reasons why companies needed to pursue the single customer view: “There are three critical reasons. Firstly, regulation – companies will have to do it whether they like it or not; secondly, their competitors are doing it, and if you don’t then you’ll lose out. And thirdly, there are some real business benefits to be gained. And it’s this third reason which is sadly often overlooked.”

…..the £46 billion opportunity

David went on to talk about how recent research had shown how big the opportunity was with poor utilisation of information assets equating to an annual £46 billion missed opportunity for private sector profits; and the reasons cited for poor utilisation is the lack of quality with both information and the systems that support that information.

The editor of Data Strategy went on to reveal some further research carried out by his own magazine only one month ago: “What this showed us is that more and more money is being pumped into this. Over 40 % said that they would be spending more on customer databases this year than last year with only 9% decreasing their spend.”

Regulation was clearly one reason for this: “Look, if you are in financial services then you have to do this by the end of 2010 anyway. But the banks etc will then deliver a customer service that customers will come to expect from all their service providers. This means that the other industries will have to follow suit. If they don’t then they will lose customers, simple as that.”

…..it has to come from the top

But no-one was prepared to say that it was easy, as David Montgomery, Head of Data Management and Continuous Improvement at nPower, outlined in his presentation: “I was lucky because I got two bites at the cherry. Not everyone gets that opportunity. I got it because our company believed in it; we knew we had to do it.”

David admitted that one of the drivers behind the push for the single view was nPower’s poor showing in various reports on customer satisfaction: “Quite frankly we were coming too close to the bottom. To get up the league we had to improve, and we could only do that by handling customer issues in a much more effective and efficient way. And we could only do this if the customer information was both correct and easy to access.”

To bring about the changes required needed a top to bottom commitment across the whole company: “We branded it the Big Data Challenge. This meant that everybody had to embrace it. It also meant that we had to put quality first and not compromise on this. Everyone was responsible for it. If the data was poor then it couldn’t be passed on. And if it was passed on, then the person receiving it could reject it. This did cause some conflicts but it was good to get those out on the table, it meant that we could see where the issues were and resolve them.”

To this end, nPower rejected the notion or principle of Data Stewards: “If we’d asked people to be data stewards they would have told us that they have enough to do anyway. And our view was that this was in everyone’s job description. As such everyone was a data steward. “

…….5 steps to success

The theme of responsibility was one taken up by Simon Slocombe, Director of Consulting at Evaxyx, when he described the 5 steps that companies need to consider when pursuing Single View. Firstly, said Simon, was that you need to Model Early and Clearly; secondly, you need to Make Strategy Matter: “There is an absolute requirement to make sure that any changes are linked to organisational goals, otherwise they are likely to fail.”

Simon’s third step was the need to introduce Economies of Scale: “There will already be analysis going on – where possible look to double up with other projects, this will help to speed up the process.” Fourthly was the need to Embed: “Make sure it’s part of the everyday. Good governance is all about getting people to buy in by participating.”

The fifth step was Perseverance: “We’ve already heard from people like David at nPower. This doesn’t happen overnight. It will require changes to the business and how the business is run. It will require organisational changes. And people don’t like change. So it won’t be easy, but stick with it because there is no alternative. “

To underline this final point, Simon reminded the audience of a quote from Thomas Jefferson: “We are not to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather bed.”

It was, no doubt, a quote that everyone in the room could sympathise with as they look to introduce single view and date governance into their own organisation.
The Evaxyx website can be found at: www.evaxyx.co.uk