Information strategy white paper

Information Strategy
Leveraging data beyond the data

“
Accurate information is the key to success,
but in today’s fast-paced world things change
quickly, and with more information in more
places, it’s hard to keep up with the correct
information. Therefore it’s becoming crucial to

”
have a strategy on how to deal with the
mountain of data.

A publication by

eurocontactpool.com | info@eurocontactpool.com | +46 (0)31 10 52 50 1

The Key Issues

Why Have an Information Strategy? ............................. 3

Does Your Data Fit Your Strategy? ............................... 5

Using Information to Enhance Performance ................. 6

Information Management & Governance ...................... 7

Alignment ...................................................................... 9

7 Steps to Getting Started .......................................... 10

71% of executives say they DAILY.
with data inaccuracies
struggle

2 eurocontactpool.com | info@eurocontactpool.com | +46 (0)31 10 52 50

Why Have an Information Strategy?

Technology might make aspects of our lives simpler but in business terms the
speed of technological development presents challenges in how to manage
it. Information technology has integrated itself into the fabric of businesses to
the extent that it’s often no longer purely an IT team issue and strategies have
to be developed cross-departmentally. The process of managing technology
in the enterprise is getting more complex as it simultaneously becomes more
important.

Information is the single most important resource for almost every business
- affecting sales, marketing, human resources and operations. Just as impor-
tantly, almost all management decision-making takes place with reference to
data, examples being: the size of the potential customer base, the value of
current customers, the anticipated return on investment on new projects, and
the levels of staffing and resourcing needed to support them.

Information alone cannot do this, nor can strategy. In reality, in any successful
organisation, information and strategy are inextricably linked. Information will
determine the direction the business should take and strategy will help prioritise
the information needs of the business. The enterprises that get this right will
gain a competitive advantage.

“ ”
Knowledge is Power
Sir Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)

This quotation is now often adapted to “Information is Power” and whereas,
in the 16th century, knowledge was power if you used it for yourself, in a 21st
century enterprise, it’s only beneficial if it’s shared.

There is no benefit in the company’s CEO knowing everything there is to know
about the customers if that isn’t shared with the sales and customer services
people who deal with them on a daily basis.

Similarly, the business performance stats no longer remain within the finance
department because that information governs the enterprise’s ability to grow
and even to survive.


“
We used to provide yearly accounts for most
companies but now they want quarterly or even
monthly management accounts because it’s so
important to know the business is on track and

”
make rapid changes if it isn’t.
UK Accountance Firm

Therefore, information has moved from being a ‘technical tool’ to being a
‘management tool’ and to being something that is not held by a select few,
but which can be accessed by every level within the business and even out
to customers and partners.

Case Study
Information & Partnerships
The Issue
The language services industry which provides interpreters for the public- and private-
sector used to compete one-on-one for large Government contracts. A number of high-
profile failures to provide interpreters has demonstrated that no single company can
provide on-demand nationwide interpreter services in a large number of languages.

The Solution
One of the language industry global leaders, thebigword, has developed a technology
that enables it to collaborate with up to 50 partners at a time – including SMEs, charities
and the voluntary sector – to provide on-demand interpreting services. To facilitate this,
it has developed an information sharing portal called Word Pie™.

thebigword’s CEO Larry Gould says:

“
Word Pie™ is exactly what it says, a pie that a lot of people have a
share of. In the past we would never have considered sharing cus-
tomer contracts with outside organisations. We would have won them

”
and kept them for ourselves. But we know that information sharing
is the way to grow the business because it’s the only way to meet the
customers’ requirements.


Does Your Data Fit Your Strategy?
Most enterprises start out by one or a few people deciding to run a
business. In the hectic early years of trying to secure customers and grow
bigger, information management is a low priority. It’s only when a business
has reached a certain size that information – and it has to be good informa-
tion – is needed for it to develop further.

It is at this stage that many managers discover that their information is not
up to the job, and this usually is a result of how it was collected in the first
place. Most companies’ information has been collected in many different
ways, typically: inputting by sales teams, buying-in of lists, and historical
data from previous business activities.

Not only is data that has been collected in this way incomplete, it can also
distort the true position, resulting in management decisions being taken on
inaccurate information.

“
We had a really hot sales guy for a while work-
ing in a specific region. As a result, it looked as
though all our potential customers were there.
We were already in the process of setting up a
local office to service it when we realised that
there were a lot more prospects in a completely

”
different region.
CEO of a multinational
manufacturing company

As we have explained earlier in this White Paper, information and business
strategy are linked together, each needing the other for the enterprise to
function successfully. Because of this, your developing strategy may fuel
the need for information that you don’t currently have and that you will
need in order to achieve business objectives.


Using Information to Enhance Performance

Information flows though every enterprise, not always in a
planned or strategic way. Typically, customer information will
start with Sales and is immediately relevant to Marketing. Once
sales are made, the information flow needs to encompass
90%
of executives say their
Operations, Customer Service and Finance. The IT depart-
ment should have a logistical and ‘umbrella’ role, overseeing business is data driven
the technology behind the information flow.

Having a repository for this information is very important
because the proliferation of smart phones and tablets – in
addition to a drive towards the ‘Bring Your Own Device’
Only 1/3
of data scientists said they
culture, means vital customer data can be spread across the
enterprise. If information stays on iPads, Blackberries and in are very confident in their
the sales team’s heads then it fails the ‘information sharing’ company’s ability to make
rule and cannot contribute to decision-making.
business decisions based
Increasingly, organisations work on a project basis, with fluid, on data.
interdepartmental teams and outsourced specialists coming
together to manage a project. These teams often need data
to support their tasks and the availability and accuracy of that
data can have far-reaching consequences on the project’s
success. Project planning is everything and a project based on
inaccurate information may have a disastrous impact
throughout the enterprise.

James Waterhouse
CEO, KeyedIn Consulting Group
A hundred years ago, the Titanic set sail from Southampton with nearly two thousand people on
board but only 16 lifeboats. The original design allowed for 64 but these were reduced to allow
more space for luxuries. After all, why frighten the first class passengers and clutter the decks
when the ship was ‘unsinkable’? Similarly, every expense was spared on the quality of the ship’s
rivets which popped out like press studs when the iceberg hit. Another bad decision.

Add to this the fact that no evacuation procedures were drilled by the crew; its captain insisted
on sailing through a known ice field at full throttle to keep on schedule; life boats were launched
half empty….all decisions driven by the wrong belief that the ship couldn’t possibly sink. What
really caused the loss of 1500 lives that night? A series of bad decisions brought about by an
initial, inaccurate piece of information that everyone worked on: the Titanic was unsinkable.


Information Management & Governance

Your Information Strategy will encompass several key questions that cover the
management and governance of your date:

Information Generation
How is our information generated and when people acquire it, what do they do with it?

Information Storage
Do we have a central storage space for customer information or is it spread across the
enterprise with e.g. customer buyer contacts in Sales, revenue statistics in Finance, delivery
schedules in Operations, and complaints in Customer Service?

Information Utilisation
Who uses our information and what for? How do they access and bring together relevant
information for a project or business development process?

To what extent do we want information to be available to different layers of our workforce and
partners and customers?

Developing and Maintaining Data Integrity
When information is input into our system, how do we check that it’s accurate?

Do we have a mechanism to ensure data records on customers and prospects are up to date?
If not, is inaccurate or incomplete information impacting on our business decisions?

“
The current challenges in the economy make
the business universe very fluid. We currently
make 10,000 adjustments and amendments to
the EuroContactPool database every day.

”
Johan Lindqvist, EuroContactPool


Irrespective of the work you put into developing and implementing an Information Strategy, it
won’t work unless users are engaged and on-side. That will only happen if they can see direct
results from supporting the strategy and if their part in it isn’t too time-consuming.

“
A Swedish company found that it took a sales
person up to 15 minutes to find out all the infor-
mation on each customer or prospect to fill out
the fields on its CRM. This could be done by an
automatic updating system at less than a tenth

”
of the cost.
- EuroContactPool

There are still many businesses that cannot take advantage of necessary data because it’s
simply inaccessible. Only 17 % of B2B marketers claim to have access to valuable data that
allowed them to be intelligence-driven in their business decisions. Understanding customers
and markets is only possible by creating infrastructure to make data as available as possible –
with minimum effort.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, however, are not the complete answer.
You may be familiar with the phrase ‘Rubbish In – Rubbish Out’, which means that the data-
base output is directly related to the quality of the input. Your business’s CRM might enable
you to store details on 10,000 companies but if 40 per cent of them are inaccurate, then you
will have 4,000 wrong records.

Fortunately, most industry-standard CRMs such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce.com,
SuperOffice, Lundalogik and Agile Sales can link seamlessly into a master database such as
EuroContactPool, providing access to accurate data from the desktop interface.

By automating the data quality process, any department can have access to up-to-date data,
allowing marketers to make timely, multidimensional and relevant business decisions, and
allowing your company to stay ahead of the competition.

Demonstrating results can be more difficult and is often longer-term.
Sometimes a single incident will trigger off the realisation.

“
We have a tailor-made CRM system and we find we
have to badger new employees to keep it up to date.
Then there’s usually an occasion where they take
a call on behalf of a colleague and at that moment,

”
they realise what a valuable resource it is.
- Sue Baker, MD of Lexicon PR Ltd.


Alignment
As with any strategy, Information Strategy will not deliver unless it
is aligned with the objectives of the enterprise. Without the
effective management of information, business units will not meet
their goals and inaccurate information will affect all their activities
and ultimately, customer satisfaction.

Revisiting the company’s overall strategy should address this: is
the aim to be the highest quality or the lowest price? The fastest
growing or niche and highly profitable? Whatever the company’s
objectives, and there will doubtless be many more than this, the
Information Strategy should support them.

Elements of the business, such as departments and project
teams, will have their own plans that (in theory) will align with
delivery of the business objectives. It is these ‘frontline’ plans that
often determine which information matters most.

Putting in goals for your Information Strategy will enable you to
monitor adoption of the processes and manage pockets of
non-alignment.

“ What gets measured, gets managed.
- Management Guru Peter Drucker

”


7 Steps to Getting Started

1. Top Down
Information Strategy must have commitment from the senior management team. If senior
management are seen not to adhere to the policy, no-one else will either.

2. The Front Line
Information Strategy isn’t just a management tool but something that impacts enterprise-wide.
Look at how access to information affects customer relationships.

3. New Structures
All businesses are changing cultures and structures to meet changing needs: outsourcing,
remote working, Bring Your Own Device, project teams. Consider the Information needs of
these groups and how the Strategy should embrace them.

4. Existing Systems
How will the Information Strategy integrate existing systems such as Project Management
Software and Customer Relationship Management?

5. Transformation
Consider the way that information travels through the enterprise and how accurate data will
support many of its operations.

6. Engagement
Bring Stakeholders on-board by understanding their information needs, communicating their
role and explaining their part in the strategy’s success.

7. Tools
Put in place the right tools and techniques to create your information strategy and maintain
effective data management.


About EuroContactPool
Information you can trust
EuroContactPool is the world’s most comprehensive European database
containing the freshest and most accurate marketing information.

We provide high-quality business information for your sales and marketing needs, and
data management solutions, all of which support confident decision-making processes
and the identification of high-potential business opportunities. We have information on
26 million businesses and 22 million decision-makers across Europe, to make sure you
find and connect with the right target. More than 30 million records are updated daily and
uniquely, they’re available from a single supplier. It’s what sets us apart from our competi-
tors and enables you to run a hassle-free, cost-effective, targeted and highly-successful
marketing campaigns.

EuroContactPool has a range of tools to support your Information Strategy and
Data Management:

Data Audit – determine the accuracy or otherwise of your in-house customer database by
matching it against EuroContactPool’s master database, containing information on more
than 30 million European businesses and decision-makers, updated daily.

Data Match and Cleansing – 85-95% by automatic data cleansing followed by 5-10%
identified by manual data cleansing.

Enhancement and Appending – completing and updating your records with all the cur-
rent information known about that company.

Monitoring and Updating – to ensure that every record is fresh and up-to-the-minute.
One-by-One Matching – enabling you to find all the known data about an enterprise from
one small piece of information.

Analysis and Prospect Search – identifying your best customers and finding more of the
same, right across Europe.

CRM Integration – EuroContactPool CRM plug-ins enable users to access the powerful
EuroContactPool database direct from their familiar CRM interface. Supported systems
include Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, SuperOffice, SAP, and Lundalogik.

eurocontactpool.com | info@eurocontactpool.com


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