A major provider of document management products operates in 16 European countries. The company provides printing and copying equipment, as well as consulting services designed to help companies efficiently manage their documents.
The company approached DataFlux as it was undergoing a large-scale SAP migration spanning all countries in its European region. The company knew the continuity and control it wanted from its SAP system would be compromised if the data within SAP was inconsistent, inaccurate and unreliable. To complicate the project, the SAP system would incorporate data from 10 legacy systems from each of the company’s 16 European regions.
European countries struggle with unique data quality challenges due to multiple languages and different standards (for addresses, names, product IDs, etc.). These issues can undermine the ability to keep one unified file for each customer. As a result, data analysts at this company spent time cleaning data rather than supplying expertise in interpreting data and defining business requirements.
The company also wanted to make certain that data was entered correctly into its new SAP system. For instance, it needed a way to ensure that the same customer wasn’t entered in the system multiple times because of a slight variation in the name or address.
The company chose DataFlux for its intuitive interface that allowed analysts to quickly clean data from legacy systems and transfer it to the new SAP system, and for its ability to deliver connectivity with the SAP environment. It used DataFlux technology to make sure new data gets entered correctly – and the company can use those same rules in a real-time environment to provide a critical check on data quality.
“This company’s goal was simple: Ask a question once, store the answer once and make it available many times internationally,” says Richard Onslow, business solutions director, UK for DataFlux. “However, most organizations don’t have the data quality and data integration framework to make this a reality.”
Today, the company’s picture of its European customers is clearer. The company feels confident when they analyze data for patterns, trends and marketing opportunities. For example, a customer with a poor payment history can’t buy or lease from a different country’s business unit, because each unit has access to data from the entire European market.
Better data also means better customer retention. The company knows which customers have the highest value and can offer them the best pricing. “They know they are working with quality data,” Onslow says. “They have more flexibility and functionality and, most importantly, a single view of the customer.”