Jan 2007: Lagan and Datactics Produce Government First

Lagan, provider of CRM and Enterprise Case Management solutions to Government, has announced a partnership with Datactics, developer of data matching technology. Lagan has integrated Datactics’ Single View of Customer (SVC) with its CRM solution. The solution will provide local authorities and other public sector organizations with the ability – hitherto unachievable in the public sector – to have a complete view from their CRM system of the customer, the information held against them and all their individual interactions, irrespective of where the information is held across the organization. The solution will transform the efficiency and the way in which customer service is delivered and will also prevent disjointed and inconsistent information being held about the same person.

Jon Brooks, COO at Lagan, comments, “As Gartner stated in 2005, “Without the appropriate customer information at the appropriate time, it is difficult to achieve CRM goals.”

Within Local Authorities and the Public Sector generally, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are widely recognized for their strength in helping to standardize processes, consolidate functions, and provide better integrated end-to-end processes across organizational units. Until recently, however, CRM systems alone could not solve the one issue that could prevent a Government Department’s goal of providing effective and efficient service - the need for an accurate, up-to-date, and single view of the customer (SVC) across all front and back-office systems.

Jon Brooks continues, “The problem is that obtaining and managing such an accurate, real-time view is incredibly challenging. The heterogeneous nature of the modern enterprise means that data is rarely maintained in the same format between systems, and, more often than not, inconsistencies in content – caused by basic data entry errors or systems being simply out of date – make it extremely difficult to accurately match and merge data across systems.”

Maintaining cleansed customer information is non-trivial – data will be entered incorrectly or indeed multiple times and quite often inconsistently.  Moreover people’s details change; people are born, people die, people get married and people change address.  It is estimated that change of address alone affects 10% of the population each year.

Lagan SVC presents a unique solution to this problem. By matching, de-duping and merging duplicated individuals and /or records, Lagan SVC provides a Government Department’s frontline operator with a single view of the customer at any one time. Regardless of how the customer contacts the organization – whether that is in person or on the phone - the operator can see the customer’s full contact history, all the open queries relevant to that individual and all the background information contained across the organization which pertains to that customer. By having access to information that is now both consistent and reliable, operators are able to provide the customer with a better interaction with the Government Department or council.

Furthermore, any interdependencies between the customer’s general contact information, and the specific query or action being undertaken, will be highlighted, enabling operators to pro-actively answer all open queries, improving efficiency whilst optimizing time on the call [or interaction] and thereby reducing the overall number of interactions. The council or Government Department will furthermore benefit from improved management information as duplicate, mis-keyed and redundant records will be removed.

Sarah Bearder, Managing Director at Datactics comments, “Both Local Authorities and Government Departments alike handle massive amounts of data and liaise with their customers through multiple channels making data quality paramount.  Lagan’s solution makes the process of communicating with the Government organization seamless and easier with a single point of entry and the availability of customer history.  The role we play is to ensure that no data islands are created and that interaction histories are complete and coherent.  In that respect Datactics is of strategic importance in the overall CRM architecture.”

She continues, “The fit between Lagan and Datactics is an excellent one.  Lagan has defined CRM in UK Local Government and is now expanding into the wider public sector and international markets.  Our data matching product now provides the Lagan solution with the functionality it needs to help Public Sector organizations to achieve data quality Service level Agreements [SLAs] faster and easier than ever.”

Jon Brooks agrees that Datactics has a key part to play in the CRM ecosystem. He concludes, “The joint Lagan and Datactics solution will have a dramatic effect on how citizens contact Government Departments and councils – and how these organizations manage citizens’ interaction data.  While Lagan is the engine that drives the interaction processes, Datactics augments the analytical elements of our solution with rapid file matching, data cleansing…in fact all the ‘hard’ data quality and data management issues that Datactics knows best.  We’re confident that our joint solution will be equally compelling for Public Sector organizations in the UK and beyond as we continue to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of citizen-centric service delivery.”

About Lagan

Lagan provides software solutions to Governments in the UK and North America. The company’s core business for the past seven years has been in the provision of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions to UK Local Government where it has established a clear leadership position.  To complement this and to support its ambitious growth plans, Lagan has extended its product offering to a broader Enterprise Case Management capability for all Government. The company is growing rapidly in a number of target markets and has over 140 customers.  As well as Local Government CRM, this includes Customer Contact Centers, Shared Services and Social Services in the UK as well as Human and Social Services and the Single Non Emergency Number 311 markets in the US.

Lagan has enjoyed substantial and sustained growth, with revenue increasing by an average of 65% per annum over the past five years. This success has been reflected in its appearance in the Deloitte Fast 50 Awards and the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 Awards, as one of the fastest growing UK technology companies.  A recent round of funding secured £8.3 million of venture capital for Lagan’s future expansion in its new growth markets.  Investors include: Esprit Capital Partners (formerly Cazenove Private Equity), DN Capital, Crescent Capital, QUBIS Limited and Viridian Growth Fund.

Founded in 1994 as a private company, and with more than 200 personnel, Lagan is based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with offices in London, UK and Washington DC and Chicago, USA.

About Datactics

Datactics data quality solutions equip the business user to build a unified, enhanced and accurate view of product, supplier, customer and financial data. Use of Datactics reduces manual data cleansing time and costs, creating faster time to market, driving revenue as well as reducing risk and costs. The company specializes in industries such as distribution, retail and manufacturing.

Datactics has over 10 years experience in the data quality industry. The company has gained industry recognition as a visionary within the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Quality Tools since 2007. Datactics has been recognized by Bloor Research and also by Information Difference in its Data Quality Landscape Report. Datactics has a strong portfolio of Fortune 500 customers and other leading organizations, and a worldwide partner network.