GRC Data Intelligence Expertise in Global Data 

© GRC Database Information 2012

GRC Data Intelligence  Whether you hold data as an information resource, for marketing, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), database marketing, direct marketing or any other purposes, the success of your projects and your ability to comply with corporate governance  legislation depend on the quality of your data.  Integrated data systems and software layers on top of your data often hide both the data and that data's quality problems, and often do not resolve the data quality problems. Some simple analysis of your data and your data collection systems before implementation of any information quality program will have major beneficial effects on information quality.  GRC Data Intelligence is an independent consultancy and information provider, specialising in international data knowledge.  It's all we do, so after spending years learning about variations in international information so that you don't have to, we know a thing or two about them.  Many companies spend many hundreds of hours wrestling with any number of issues concerning their international data.  We can help you to dramatically shorten the learning curve involved, through consultancy, training and our products. Our mission and motivation is to improve international data quality, for the benefit of yourselves and your customers.  We offer much advice free (pose your question here). We provide information resources.  If we cannot help you, or somebody else can help you better, we will try to point you in the right direction. The company was founded by Graham Rhind.  This page describes our consultancy and training services.  For our other products, including books and documents, software and data/reference tables, please check this page. We have experience, and will tackle, almost any project involving international data, however large or small - we are happy to help even of you require only a couple of hours of consultancy to resolve international queries. If you have an issue that you don't see addressed below, or you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to  contact us by e-mail. Data Consultancy You will probably know a great deal about names, addresses and other data for the country where you operate.  But are you prepared for data from abroad?  Can you recognize the data elements?  Are the languages a problem?  Have you formatted everything according to the correct cultural and/or postal norms?  Creating and maintaining an international database can be a time-consuming and expensive business, though the result can be well worth the time and effort involved.  When you create an international database you face numerous pitfalls which you will need to overcome.  Reduce your time and expense, get up and running quicker, and avoid re-inventing the wheel - let us help you by allowing GRC Data Intelligenceto apply its years of experience.  These are examples of projects with which we can and do help: • You require an independent consultant during negotiations with your prospect/customer for information management projects. • You are purchasing international address management software and need help in producing a short list of suitable packages or to decide the best solution for your own needs. • You are looking for international postal or GIS data, but need to know where to look and how the quality compares. • You provide international postal data and want to know where problems lie in the data and how quality can be improved. • You need to assess the problems existing in your own international data, and receive help and suggestions for cleaning it up. • You want to create a multiple-country postal validation system, in-house or on the web, and you need guidance on the issues involved and how to tackle them. • You want to start building a multi-country customer database, and need to know that the structures are going to work with international data, and where potential problems lie. • You are creating name and address management or validation systems, and need some advice on applying real-world knowledge in your systems. • You need help interpreting name and address data entered by users in your online system. • You want to organise a seminar and training sessions for your staff to enable them to understand international data issues.   • You need to assess the quality and accuracy of your address validation or GIS software. Many of our customers prefer to remain nameless for competitive reasons, and we respect this.  Our consultancy customers include: • ALLM Marketing, Bournemouth, UK • AND, Rotterdam, The Netherlands • ANWB, 's-Gravenhage, The Netherlands • Ascential Software, Westboro, MA, USA • DNP Contactcenter, Hoofddorp, The Netherlands • LRI Consulting, Atlanta, GA, USA • QAS Nederland, Amsterdam, The Netherlands • Reckless Design BV, Wieringerwerf, The Netherlands • TomTom, Amsterdam, The Netherlands • A multinational Internet GIS company - requirement to understand the structure and parsing methodologies for European addresses. • A multinational publishing company, with requirements to improve address data quality through both batch cleansing and through interactive data standardisation. • A international church organisation developing a dynamic, fully validated, data- entry system to allow high quality entry and storage of its parishioner information. • A provider of address validation software for the United Kingdom. • A multinational database management company and list broker. • A multinational manufacturer of engineering goods. • A producer of data cleaning software. • A multinational database software company. • An American sports clothing retailer. • Two Dutch call centres - data management. • A leading multinational credit-card company - requirement to understand fully international address systems to reduce credit card fraud potential. • Several major address validation software companies. • A credit rating and database management company. • A German media corporation • A British postal software company • A Dutch data quality software developer Data Quality Analysis Many companies hold international data, but cannot put it to effective and profitable use due to factors ranging from inefficient database structure, through incorrect data storage, to invalid data.  GRC Data Intelligence can analyse your data and report on effective strategies for turning the data into a profitable resource for you. Many of our customers prefer to remain nameless for competitive reasons, and we respect this.  Our customers include: • A credit rating and database management company. • A German media corporation Authoring - articles, white papers and blog posts A selection of white papers and articles that Graham has written for various vendors can be found here. Graham also writes guest blog posts for various data quality companies. Conference-speaking and seminars/training Graham has spoken at many conferences in Europe and the United States, and has tutored small groups in various aspects of international database management.  He has developed a light and amusing style, with audio-visual aids and real-world examples,  which are guaranteed to keep the attention of his audience whilst improving their understanding of the issues involved.  A one- or two-day seminar for your staff can massively reduce the learning curve involved in handling international data, and equally save you a great deal of money.  These have been Graham's most recent speaking and training engagements: • OCDQ Radio Podcast, 11th August 2011, Graham Rhind talks about International Data Quality • Post-Expo 2010, 8th October 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark.  "Names, addresses and data quality" • Universal Postal Union, Global Addressing Summit, 23rd April 2010.  "The Importance of Addressing" • IAIDQ Ask The Expert free webinar: The Challenges of Working with Global Customer Data, 27th January 2010.  For IAIDQ members, you can hear a recording of this webinar here. • DDMA (Dutch Dialogue Marketing Association) Dag van de Datakwaliteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 3rd November 2009. "Better data quality from your web form".   View a video from the event here . View the presentation online here  (page in Dutch, presentation in English) • Business Intelligence Day, Benelux, Leuven, Belgium, 17th September 2009.  "Better information quality from your web form".   • BI-Community of Practice - Data Quality Assessment, Leuven, Belgium, 30th April 2009.  "International name and address data quality".  • Data Quality Conference Europe 2007, London, UK, 29th October to 1st November 2007.  "Your Web Data Collection Form—Achieving Higher Data Quality".  Information here. • Geodis - Paris, France: One day seminar: "Ensuring global data quality",28th May 2007. • DDMA (Dutch Dialogue Marketing Association), Dag van de datakwaliteit, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 12th September 2006, "Internationale adressering". • Data Quality Conference Europe 2005, London, UK, 7th November 2005.  One day seminar: "Ensuring global data quality". • Information Quality Forum 2005, Dublin, Ireland, 13th October 2005, "Cultural tunnel vision - how ignorance affects global data quality and changes our working practices".  • Managing Information and Data  Quality Conference 2005, London, 1st-3rd June 2005. One day seminar: "Ensuring Global Address Data Quality". • DAMA Benelux/IAIDQ Information Quality Event, Diegem, Belgium, 17th March 2005. "The Ten Golden Rules for Ensuring Global Data Quality". • Data Quality Conference Europe 2004, London, 1st November 2004.  Half day seminar: "Ensuring Global Address Quality". • IRM Seminar, London, 2-3 December 2002, "Practical International Data Management - Resolving name, address and other data issues when managing international data". • Universal Postal Union, Bern, Switzerland, 1st November 2002, "How to turn direct mail into targetted, addressed direct mail" • Data Quality Conference Europe 2002, London, 21-23 October 2002, "Employing Quality Principles with Global Customer Information". • QAS sales seminar, Guest Speaker, Amsterdam, 6th June 2002, "Internationale adres beheer en data kwaliteit". • Kalido Sales Seminar & Partner Exhibition, Guest Speaker, London, 13th and 14th December 2001, "Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort". • DAMA International Conference Europe 2001, London, 29-31 October 2001, "Practical International Data Management". • 2Contact Customer Care Center, Haarlem, The Netherlands: Database training, July/August 2001 • OTS Group Data Entry Training Day, 11th January 2001: "International Name and Address Data-Entry" • PTT Post International Customer Day, 30th May 2000: "A World of Differences: International Name and Address Collection via The Internet" • SRM Training for PTT Post International, 11th December 1998 and 4th May 1999: "International Name and Address Management Issues" • Data Quality 98 Europe, London, October 1998: "Case Study: Data Collection via the Internet • Databases, Sampling and Research (DSR '98), London, September 1998: "Expecting the Unexpected in your International Data" • CustomerBase 98, Geertruidenberg, The Netherlands, May 1998: "The (Im)possibilities of International Address Standardisation • FEDMA Conference, Brussels, Belgium, April 1998: Panel Discussion, "International Data Management" • FEDMA Council Day, Brussels, Belgium, 21st November 1997 : "The Challenges of European Database Marketing" • PostalSoft UsersConference, Minneapolis, U.S.A, June 1997: "International Address Data Management" Some anonymous attendee responses to some of Graham's presentations and seminars: • "Graham speaks GOOD SENSE and all of us who collect international data need to listen." • "Excellent speaker, knows his stuff.  Eye-opening topics, common sense" • "Very impressive analytical mind" • "Excellent! Extremely relevant and detailed, and also enthusiastically presented." • "Excellent, informative." • "Good pace, good balance between theory and examples." • "Very helpful, relevant.  Gave me lots of ideas." • "Excellent presentation skills, well prepared material." • "A man with passion. Good examples, great knowledge & practical information" • "Fantastic insight - a wonderful evangelist!" • "Concrete solutions!" • "Fantastically useful!!  Extremely well presented" • "Excellent - well presented" • "Very good and confirmed my suspicions" • "Very relevant to the current problems we are facing" • "Great content - a lot to think about.  Well presented - simple, clear, understandable" • "The seminar exceeded my expectations!" • "I think this [seminar] would be extremely useful to both sales and technical people, as well as our customers & prospects!" • "A subject which I thought would be dry, however I was pleasantly surprised as it was both informative and thought provoking" Data Cleansing We are experts at parsing and standardising international address data. We have developed advanced software systems and data processes to clean, standardise and re-field your international data, saving you a lot of money by reducing postal returns, increasing de-duplication rates and reducing customer irritation.  We are also able to produce perfectly formatted address block files for label printing or mail merge for data from any country.  If you are interested in this service, kindly contact us , preferably also sending a sample of the data requiring cleansing.  Our customers include: • A multinational CRM company with a requirement to clean, re-field, standardise and import data from numerous sources into a central database. • A credit rating and database management company. • An international research group for whom we parsed and standardised 3.5 million records in a short time. • A major Dutch bank preparing data for injection into a new CRM system. Our environmental credentials It has become a fashion for companies to boast about how they are becoming more environmentally conscious.  Here at GRC Data Intelligence we have been taking care of our environment since our inception.  In fact, Graham Rhind started working on data quality as a reaction to the chronic waste of resources which is the result of non- quality data.  We reduce our impact on the planet in these ways: • We only produce products that use no physical resources - data and advice - both created to help other companies reduce waste. • We try to reduce power usage to a minimum, and our electricity is produced from wind power. Our natural gas use is compensated by tree planting in Indonesia. • Neither the company, nor its staff, has or uses cars. We avoid unnecessary travel, preferring instead to make maximum use of the powers of telecommunication.  When we do have to travel, we use trains where possible above aeroplanes. • All computers and peripherals are switched off when not in use and at night, at the socket.  Nothing is left on standby. • Paper is printed on on both sides, and then recycled. • We use daylight to light our office and, when that fails, low wattage bulbs. We have a very low carbon footprint, but are not complacent - we continue to search for new ways of helping to reduce our impact on the planet.

Data Quality Data quality: the level at which data correctly represents the real- world constructs to which it refers. Information quality: the level of value provided by data through its perception and interpretation.   Our aim is to provide advice and resources to facilitate international data quality, especially that of personal names and addresses, so that your data more accurately represents the real world constructs to which it refers, and conforms to the required linguistic and cultural norms. This provides you with a firm foundation for higher levels of information quality to be achieved from this data.

Larry English GRC Data Intelligence works closely with our associate Larry English, President and Principal of Information Impact International, Inc., to provide the full gamut of data quality services. Mr. English is an internationally recognized speaker, educator, author and consultant in information and knowledge management and information quality improvement.  He also provides consulting and education in information stewardship, strategic information visioning, information technology evaluation, information resource management and data administration, data modeling and facilitation, and value- centric application development methods.  Mr. English has developed the Total Information Quality Management (TIQM®) methodology applying Kaizen® quality principles to information quality management.  He chairs Information Quality Conferences around the world.  He is a co-founder of the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ). Prior to founding Information Impact International, Inc., Brentwood, TN, over seventeen years ago, Mr. English was Vice President of an international IRM consulting firm.  Before that, he was manager of systems development and then for information management with a large publishing firm.  Before positions as Senior Instructor for a computer manufacturer and Information Systems Training Coordinator for a major insurance firm, Mr. English began his career with Sears, Roebuck, and Co., as a programmer and systems analyst. He was featured as one of the “21 Voices for the 21st Century” in Quality Progress.  DAMA awarded him the 1998 “Individual Achievement Award” for his contributions to the field of information resource management.  Mr. English has served as an Adjunct Associate Professor in computer science.  He is a member of the American Society for Quality and is a former advisor for DAMA.  He has also been an active member of various ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standards committees, and he is an editorial advisor for DM Review. A magna cum laude graduate of Hardin- Simmons University, Mr. English holds a Masters Degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he was a Luther Rice Scholar and a Garrett Fellow.  He is listed in Outstanding Young Men in America and Who’s Who Worldwide.  He has provided consulting and educational services in 29 countries on five continents to such organizations as Aera Energy, Air Canada, American Express, Belgacom, Boeing, British Telecommunications, Coca-Cola Foods, Corning, Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, Eli Lilly, the FDIC, Hewlett- Packard, The Hartford, IBM, ING, Intel, L. L. Bean, Microsoft, NTT DATA, Sprint, Telenor, Toyota, TXU, UNUM Life Insurance Co., U.S. Navy, USAA, and Weyerhaeuser.  A frequent keynote speaker, Mr. English writes the monthly “Plain English about Information Quality” column for DM Review, and is the author of the highly acclaimed Improving Data Warehouse and Business Information Quality, also available in Japanese, and numerous articles for publications in the US and Europe.  He can be reached at Larry.English (at) infoimpact.com.