IQStandardiser

IQ Standardiser

from

Intech Solutions Pty. Ltd.

IQ Standardiser is a data cleansing application designed to enhance the Information Quality (IQ) of corporate data. Information Quality refers to the correctness, consistency and referential integrity of a database. Information Quality problems increase corporate expenses, reduce the ability to affectively perform database marketing campaigns and reduces the ability of an organisation to deliver quality services to their customers.

IQ Standardiser addresses and resolves these issues by providing the ability to transform, standardise and often correct data both in real time (for data entry systems) and in batch mode. With well structured standardised data, operational procedures can confidently validate information and match information across corporate databases. This ultimately enable better customer service, more accurate business decisions and better focused marketing campaigns.

IQ Standardiser accepts data as free format text and breaks the sting into its components producing structured fields. It does this by using the same logic that a human would use when looking at a free formatted string. For example, lets say you were to see a string “4 Campbell Pde”. You would identify that the street number is ‘4’, the street name is ‘Campbell’ and the street type is ‘Pde’ which is short for ‘Parade’. You know this by understanding the grammatical rules used when writing Australian addresses. IQ Standardiser takes this logic and converts it to a science.

IQ Standardiser stores grammatical rules for parsing in text files called grammar files. Creating, altering and using these grammar files is the heart of IQ Standardisers’ capabilities. The software comes supplied with several standard grammar files. Standard grammar files can be used or new grammar files can be created by end users of the technology. These may include transformations of phone numbers, company names, people’s names, international addresses or any other type of data.

An example of such a grammar file is dpidGeocode. This grammar file contains the grammatical syntax for Australian addresses. This grammar will accept a free format string containing a complete address as input. As output, it will produce a structured address, together with Australia Posts Delivery Point Identifier (DPID) appended to the address. IQ Standardiser, using dpidGeocode, has been approved by Australia Post in accordance with the Address Matching Approval System (AMAS) program.

For example, “the owner 4 Cambell Pde bondi beach nsw” will be transformed to:

IQ Standardiser users highly innovative and often unique techniques to allow organizations to easily create and deploy powerful data standardization routines to their corporate data.

IQ Standardiser takes the process of recognising (parsing, breaking down into discreet elements) free formatted data and turns this into a science. This process is called string parsing. Their are many parsers (commercially available) capable of parsing particular types of data. For example, a SQL parser can break down a SQL query. However, a SQL parser is restricted to recognising a single language called SQL. The innovation behind IQ Standardiser is its ability to abstract the above described parsing process. Where a SQL parser will work on one language, IQ Standardiser will allow you to define a language and then work on that language.

IQ Standardiser has many unique attributes in the way it operates. IQ Standardiser may be used via an Application Programming Interface (API) or a batch application. The API provides client server access to the parsing routines enabling developers to integrate the functionality into their own applications.

The batch application users powerful database connectivity to process existing data. This data connectivity allows the application to intelligently select the data required for processing and output the standardised (processed) data directly to the source database. This unique method overcomes common issues associated with ‘standard offline’ processing methods. The key to this is the innovative way in which the batch application connects and sends information to and from the database.

For example, many client applications can use a single IQ Standardiser server to transform an address to a standard format. This ensures that the data format is truly standard across business system.

Integrating IQ Standardiser into existing and new database systems increases data consistency, accuracy and referential integrity. This reduces costs associated with bad quality data and creates opportunities arising from information enhancement.

Reduced costs arise from more accurate address data, less duplication in customer databases and staff more likely to enter information correctly resulting in less re-works.

Information enhancement is obtained by adding and/or identifying elements of data which were previously ‘hidden’ in free text. This allows for better reporting capabilities, more targeted marketing campaigns, and better informed business decisions.

IQ Standardiser expands the horizons of both developers who create business applications and end users who use these applications.

Developers use the functionality provided by IQ Standardiser by using data transformations as integrated components in their own applications. Additionally, developers can create their own customized transformations by creating their own grammar files. The grammar files (containing the grammar definition of how to parse the input) are created in a language which is documented in our Software Development Kit (SDK). Using this language, developers can gain an unlimited capability to standardize, enhance, validate and in other ways, cleanse data.

End users are empowered to simply type data into their application in a format that is natural to them. IQ Standardiser will then standardize, validate and often fix the data ‘on the fly’. For the user this means easier data entry as well as the ability to search for existing data with confidence that the search result will not be negatively affected due to badly formatted data, in other words, users find what they are looking for in the database search.

IQ Standardiser is implemented at several leading organizations such as Telstra Bigpond, Inchcape Motors, Energex, AOL Time Warner and Millers Retail Limited. Each of these customers rate themselves as highly satisfied with product performance, benefits obtained and customer service. For Intech Solutions, this has resulted in an ongoing business relationship with leading Australian and international businesses.

IQ Standardiser is approved by Australia Post under their Address Matching Approval System (AMAS). Australia Post’s AMAS program tests third part software vendors’ ability to accurately matching address data to the Postal Address File (PAF).

IQ Standardiser is extensively used at several industry leading businesses. Attached is a case study on Millers Retail Limited (MRL). MRL are Australia’s fasted growing public company. Intech Solutions have implemented IQ Standardiser to enhance their Membership database. MRL maintain a loyalty program where customers sign up to become members. Their database currently consists of over 3 million members and is widely considered the key to MRL’s business success.

Every new member record gets processed and standardized by IQ Standardiser. Using standardized data has enabled accurate de-duplication and search routines, to be integrated into the database. This has enabled MRL to produce more affective marketing campaigns as well as reduce overhead expenses.

MRL run a VIP promotion campaign where they direct mail X customers to attend a store on nominated day. By implementing IQ Standardiser, MRL have reduced the number of direct mail items needed to be sent for their VIP campaign by 60% whilst increasing the revenue received as a result of the direct mail by 30%. With over 500 retail stores, each conducting several VIP days per year, this has resulted in millions of dollars in profits being added to the bottom line.

Return to sender mail has also reduced from 5% to 1.3% representing industry best practice. Duplicate mail items being sent has also reduced to insignificant levels. With yearly direct marketing mail exceeding 4.5 million items, this represents great savings.

The above business benefits have not gone unnoticed at MRL. MRL rate the level of product performance, as well as support they receive from Intech Solutions as outstanding.

Intech Solutions Pty. Ltd. has spent three years of dedicated research and development building software via a process of 'revolution' rather than 'evolution'. This development method has ensured that the products developed are superior in design ensuring the highest level of functionality, performance, robustness and longevity. The server components are written in C++ and are available on both Windows and UNIX operating systems. The code facilitates andvanced functions such as multi threaded servers, a client/server architecture and a superbly engineered Application Programming Interface.

Data Quality issues are well recognised as a primary cause of failure in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Data Warehousing (DW) projects.

In a report released by the Aberdeen Group, a leading provider of technology market consulting and research, reports that the Customer Relationship Management market will exceed $24 billion by 2003 and will remain a high-growth IT market. During CRM and Data Warehousing implementations, it is common for Data Quality issues to rise. As CRM and DW projects progress, industry is realising that the success of these projects are more related to the quality of data and less related to the methods used to store and retrieve this data. This results in corporate expenditure on Information Quality products and services become a significant contribution to the total market expenditure described above.

Since IQ Standardiser is not data dependent, it is applicable for use across the globe. This includes different types of data, languages and character sets. Standard grammar files include processing for New Zealand address data. It is a relatively trivial exercise to extend this address processing to cover other countries.

Whilst the Information Quality industry is service intensive, the bulk of our revenue is generated from software licensing. This places Intech Solutions in a position where we can expand our revenue (both locally and internationally) without over extending our resources. By partnering with service providers and third part software vendors, we are able to provide these third parties with business opportunities which are truly mutually beneficial.

Each of the above have significant dependence on Information Quality and are well developed areas within the IT industry.

IQ Standardiser is part of the IQ Office range of software. Other components are IQ Rapid Address, an address capture application designed to speed up the process of capturing accurate address data and IQ Matcher, a probabilistic record linking application designed to match and merge data across various data sources.

Terry Goodman

terryg@intechiq.com

Intech Solutions Pty. Ltd.

Phone: (02) 9994 8988