12 January 2009

Capscan Forms Strategic Partnership With D&B To Deliver Market Leading Comprehensive Commercial Contact Data

Capscan, a leading supplier of international address management solutions and data integrity services, today announced that it has partnered with leading business information provider D&B. The partnership provides Capscan’s customers with the market leading data to validate, cleanse and enhance data held within commercial databases, thus improving data quality and increasing operational efficiency.

The D&B global commercial database holds in excess of 142 million business records from 240 countries, with the D&B UK Marketing File (UKMF) alone holding over 3.4 million records of actively trading businesses, ensuring users receive the highest quality information. Using D&B commercial data, customers of Matchcode Commercial are able to validate business information against the best data and build a more accurate and comprehensive picture of customers and prospects, a crucial tool when trading internationally and planning global marketing campaigns. Commercial data batch validation and cleansing is also available for the first time from Capscan’s bureau services.

“In this financial climate it is now more important than ever that companies recognise the importance of data quality management in helping to reduce costs, increase operational efficiency, retain customers and identify areas for revenue,” comments Managing Director of Capscan, Terry Hiles. “According to a recent report, the estimated percentage of budget or funding that is wasted as a result of poor data is 19% on average. Ensuring contact data is accurate and has the correct country format offers benefits such as reduced cost of mailing due to less risk of undeliverables, reduced exposure of the business to identity fraud and better customer service.”

Marketing Director at D&B, Roger Hodson adds, “The breadth and depth of D&B’s commercial data will add huge value to Capscan’s offering to its customers. Although crucial in any kind of marketing activity, ensuring contact data accuracy is no longer enough to achieve true data quality. Enhancing names and addresses with fields such as business classification codes and extra information such as a D-U-N-S® number significantly boosts the ability to build a much broader representation of your customer base and assist in making successful business decisions.”

Matchcode Commercial is Capscan’s tool for capturing and validating business contact data, including business names and addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and Standard Industry Classification (SIC) codes. The D&B database will also enable the enhancement of business records with additional information such as the number of employees, turnover figures and the D-U-N-S® number, an internationally-recognised nine-digit identifier that can be used to unlock financial and performance information tracked by D&B. Matchcode Commercial can also be used in Batch mode to update records with the latest data from D&B and maintain database quality.

Hiles adds, “D&B is the market leader in the provision of business information, so this partnership means our customers have access to the best possible quality data available when validating and enhancing their commercial contact databases.”