1. “Time-to-marketis key for us and previouslywe’d
struggled to maintain the right rate of delivery…. With
Microsoft Azure, we can now develop and deploy
faster, retainingcontrol and loweringcosts.”
David Wilson, Architect, Callcredit
Consumer data management organization Callcredit required a
faster way to develop and deploy new products to its global
customer base, while still meeting stringent data protection
regulations. By moving a key application to Microsoft Azure, it
has increased customer satisfaction, lowered costs, and
transformed its development and deployment processes, giving
a more accurate view of product profitability and supporting
global expansion.
Business Needs
Callcredit develops innovative products
and services that help businesses cost-
effectively identify, engage, and convert
new customers, while optimizing customer
profitability. It delivers this through both
credit reference checking and marketing
services and operates globally, through
offices and partners across the world.
Expanding rapidly, it recently opened its
first office in China.
Much of the data that drives Callcredit’s
business is provided by its customers,
notably banks and other financialservices
organizations.The company then adds
complementary data, such as demographic
information, to enable deeper insight for
its customers, helping themmake more
informed decisions throughout the
business life cycle.
As a fast-growing business,Callcredit is
continually looking to improve its services
through technology. It recognized the
advantages that cloud-based computing
would provide to its global operations in
terms of efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
However the company must meet the
highest standards in terms of data
protection, privacy, and security. This
Consumer Data Management Business Reduces
Time-to-Market with Cloud-Based Platform
Customer: Callcredit
Website: www.callcredit.co.uk
Customer Size: 100-5,000 employees
Country or Region: United Kingdom
Industry: Financial services
Customer Profile
Formed in 2000 and headquartered in
the United Kingdom, Callcredit manages
consumer data and provides credit rating
and marketing services to leading
organizations around the world.
Software and Services
 Microsoft Azure
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2. This case study is for informational purposes only.
MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published December 2014
includes the need for identifiable personal
data to remain in the country of origin and
available to consumers on request.
Callcredit therefore evaluated areas where
cloud-based computing could be deployed,
without impacting data protection
regulations.
“We hold a lot of data that is governed by
stringent regulations,but at the same time
saw that a cloud-based model provided
multiple advantages to our growing
international business,” says David Wilson,
Architect at Callcredit. “After evaluating our
portfolio of products and services, we
identified a number that could be moved to
the cloud because they did not contain
personally identifiable data and would be
useful to our growing globalcustomer
base.”
Solution
Followingthe review of its product
portfolio, Callcredit considered moving to a
cloud-based model. It had clear
requirements around control,costs, and
support for global operations.
“We recognized that we wanted to deliver
services that we didn’t host ourselves,” says
Wilson. “However, we wanted a platform
where we were still in control of
deployment and delivery. Traditional
hosting was not effective at meeting our
needs, so we decided to move to a solution
where the underlying infrastructure would
be handled by the cloud.”
Since its foundation in 2000, Callcredit has
been an extensive user of Microsoft
technology, making Microsoft Azure the
obvious choice because it would work with
the company’s existing software. Azure is an
open and flexible cloud platformthat
enables companies to quickly build, deploy,
and manage applications, all hosted in
Microsoft datacenters.
“The Microsoft stack is at the heart of how
we develop our products,” says Wilson.
“While we did evaluate the market, the fact
that we develop in Microsoft SQL Server
and Microsoft .NET made Azure a natural
fit.”
Callcredit analyzed its product portfolio in
January 2013 and identified MICROVISION,
one of its existing retail planningtools, as
the first product to move to the cloud.
MICROVISION (now MVPLUS) allows
customers to upload data sets, such as
locations of stores and existing customers,
and overlay this with other data, such as
demographic information. Retailers can
then use the tool to identify potential
locations for new stores or where existing
stores can be enhanced to better meet the
needs of changing populations.
MICROVISION, which has more than 200
users, was only available as a traditional,
on-premises product. Callcredit therefore
needed to redevelop it as a web service
and started work within Microsoft Azure in
September 2013.
The development team created a beta of
the rebranded MVPLUS within five months,
which early adopters trialed during 2014
with the first production users going live in
November. Callcredit is also evaluating the
next product to redevelop in Microsoft
Azure.
Benefits
Callcredit is early in the move to a cloud-
based model, but it is already seeing
benefits in five key areas:
 Increased customer satisfaction.
Feedback on the web-based version of
MVPLUS has been overwhelmingly
positive. Because users can log on from
anywhere, rather than being tied to
specific PCs, it is easier to share
information among their teams. This is
aiding customer retention.
 Faster development and deployment.
Moving to a cloud-based model has
transformed the development process,
making it much more structured. “Azure
has changed how we develop, making it
easy to collaborate and dramatically
shortening deployment cycles,” says
Wilson. “Before, we had an annual
update—now,we can deliver new data
sets as they become available and
customers can take advantage of these
straight away.”
 Lower costs. Callcredit can develop and
deploy in the same Azure environment,
so testing time and expense is
minimized. The cloud-based model also
provides flexibility and control. “The
nature of Microsoft Azure means we can
deploy small and scale to meet
demand,” says Wilson, “Support costs
have reduced by 35 percent since we
moved MVPLUS to the cloud.”
 More accurate view of profitability.
For the first time, Callcredit can see the
total cost of ownership of creating and
providing a product. This is the first step
toward being able to measure individual
product profitability.
 Support for global reach. While the
development team for MVPLUS is based
in the United Kingdom, Azure provides a
global platformthat means that
Callcredit’s developers in Lithuania and
partners in other countries can easily
work together on future projects.
Customers benefit fromthe same
experience and usability, wherever they
are located around the world.
“Time-to-market is key for us and
previously we’d struggled to maintain
the right rate of delivery to meet
customer needs,” says Wilson. “With
Microsoft Azure, we can now develop
and deploy faster, retaining control and
lowering costs.”