Gouden Gids - Netpartners

Success Story
Gouden Gids,
Dutch Golden
Pages
The leading publisher of Yellow Pages
classified directories in the Netherlands
protects its brand by using the Trillium
Software System® to ensure accurate listings.
Advertising revenue is enhanced too through
quality customer contact and new prospect
information being provided quickly to direct
sales teams.
Project Type
Data Migration
Ongoing Data Quality Processes
Industry
Publishing/Advertising
Environment
Oracle
Microsoft Windows NT
Challenges
Data on 650,000 Businesses
Multiple External Data Sources
Need for Absolute Accuracy
Trillium Software Solutions
Trillium Software System
When Accuracy is Everything
No one understands the value of
accurate and complete information better than Gouden Gids, a
subsidiary of World Directories
that has been publishing business directories since 1964. The
company is the most trusted brand
name in classified directories in the
Netherlands. It publishes information on some 650,000 businesses,
and tens of thousands of those
businesses also pay for additional
advertising exposure. Every year,
Gouden Gids distributes millions
of directories to businesses and
households throughout the country as well as providing information
both on CD ROM and on the Web.
In recent years the challenges of
maintaining the accuracy of its central
database had became more complex
while the need for speed and accuracy intensified. By automating their
data verification and consolidation
processes, the company expected to
gain better operational efficiencies,
cut costs, and boost sales.
Handle Bigger, Changing
Data Volumes
Publishing 26 local Dutch directories as well as providing information on CD ROM and the Web
demanded the ability to rapidly
process hundreds of thousands of
records. As Gijsbert van der Linden,
Business Analyst at Gouden Gids
explained: “We must ensure the
accuracy of the 650,000 entries
we print. Not only is that a lot of
information, but it isn’t static. New
businesses launch while others
branch into new areas, move, or
cease trading.”
Provide Full Contact Info
for Sales
The company understood that
better data quality would increase
sales. Its 300 sales people needed
the right contact data for existing
customers. “In addition to information printed, we need to have
accurate decision-maker information on tens of thousands of paying
advertisers and hundreds of thousands of contacts in firms with a
simple free listing,” said Gijsbert
van der Linden “This is essential
information for our sales teams
for cross-selling advertising into
other relevant classifications and
into books covering neighbouring
geographies for example. It is
essential too for them to be effective in their task of up-selling from
free listings to advertisements.
Inaccurate contact information
would severely damage the effectiveness of our sales operation.”
Identify New Business
Prospects
A significant source of new advertising revenue comes from new
businesses, so it was important to
quickly identify new prospects and
feed new leads to the sales force.
This meant that the company had
to be able to rapidly consolidate
external data, which the company
purchases from local chambers
of commerce throughout the
Netherlands, from trade associations, and other approved suppliers,
and reliably identify new businesses in that data.
Gain Speed and Reliability
While Cutting Costs
For many years Gouden Gids had
relied on a partly outsourced,
manual process for verifying and
updating data, but this was a slow
and expensive process. In 2000, as
the company began planning an
overhaul to its database management environment, it decided to
automate the verification process
and bring it in house. “We sought
an automated data quality solution
since we wanted to be certain of the
quality of our source data before
migrating it to Oracle,” said van der
Linden. “We also wanted the cost
and speed efficiencies of an automated data cleansing process on
an ongoing basis. When new data
is acquired, we want minimal delay
before adding it as clean data to
the central contact database for the
business to use and profit from.”
TRILLIUM SOFTWARE®, a division of Harte-Hanks • 1-2 Fortuna Court, Calleva Park, Aldermaston, Berkshire RG7 8UB, UK
+44 (0)118 940 7600 • www.trilliumsoftware.com • [email protected]
TRILLIUM SOFTWARE , a division of Harte-Hanks
®
Case Study: Gouden Gids
The Easiest, Fastest Solution
Gouden Gids invited a number of data quality
solution vendors to offer proposals. Three finalists were put to the test, being asked to analyse
and cleanse test files typical of data received
from key suppliers. The prospective vendors
also had to demonstrate that their solutions
could standardise the data in the Gouden Gids
format and parse, match/deduplicate, and
enrich records appropriately against records
held in a sample of the main database.
“We selected the Trillium Software System®
because it proved to be the fastest and the
most accurate. While it was the most sophisticated and rich in capabilities, it was also the
easiest to understand and work with,“ said
van der Linden. In fact, the Trillium Software
System completed its work on the test file in
one hour while a competing product had to be
closed down after running for eight!
“We were really confident when we selected
the Trillium Software System and I’m equally
confident today that we made the right
choice,” said van der Linden. “Performance
is amazing.” The Trillium Software System
will process a file of a hundred thousand
records in around one hour. It’s also trans-
parent. You can see what it’s doing and why.
If you disagree, then with the right authorization, you can alter the rules by which it
operates. You can educate it.”
Implementation went smoothly, guided by
IntoDQ, a Trillium Software® reseller for the
Benelux region. “IntoDQ has proven to be
a very capable and valuable data quality
consulting partner,” said van der Linden.
“They have an excellent knowledge of the
processes for delivering data quality and
how to implement them using the Trillium
Software System. They helped us to configure the Trillium Software System to our
precise requirements and also provided us
with training so we could deliver business
value quickly.”
Bottom Line Results
Today, the central database is regularly
quality checked, and newly acquired data
swiftly passes through the quality process
before being loaded. Matching processes
either remove duplicate entries or use new
data in that record to update the existing
record. Postal codes are checked against
addresses and spellings corrected, misaligned data is moved to correct fields, and
multiple data elements placed in a single
field are parsed.
Although it’s hard for van der Linden to
put a precise figure on benefits won, the
company knows that improving data quality
and switching from an outsourced manual
verification process, to an internal automated one has been a good investment.
“I would estimate that our fresh approach
to data management, including the investment in Oracle, Trillium Software, and other
associated expenses paid for itself through
reduced costs and increased sales in less
than two years.”
“Data is a key business asset for Gouden Gids.
Our Managing Director owns overall responsibility for it. With the Trillium Software System
at the core, he knows that our central database is accurate. He can see that customer
satisfaction is up, our sales teams are more
effective, and costs of data quality management are down,” said van der Linden.
“The bottom line is that the Trillium Software
System helps us to maintain our reputation as
the number one classified business information directory in the Netherlands.”
“We selected the
Trillium So�ware System
because it proved to be
the fastest and the most
accurate. While it was the
most sophisticated and rich
in capabilities, it was also
the easiest to understand
and work with. “
“The bo�om line is that the
Trillium So�ware System
helps us to maintain our
reputation as the number
one classified business
information directory in
the Netherlands.”
Gijsbert van der Linden, Business
Analyst, Gouden Gids
About Trillium Software
®
Dedicated to increasing the value of information
across organizations, Trillium Software , a division
of Harte-Hanks, is the most trusted provider of
technologies for Total Data Quality. Today,
more than 1400 companies world-wide use the
Trillium Software System® and Trillium Software
Discovery to turn raw, chaotic data into usable,
valuable information through continuous global
data profiling, cleansing, enrichment, and
monitoring.
TRILLIUM SOFTWARE®, a division of Harte-Hanks • 1-2 Fortuna Court, Calleva Park, Aldermaston, Berkshire RG7 8UB, UK
+44 (0)118 940 7600 • www.trilliumsoftware.com • [email protected]
®