'Customer Intelligence' Empowers Organizations to Convert Data to Profits, According to New AberdeenGroup Study.

BOSTON -- Third paragraph, first sentence should read: Aberdeen's "Customer Intelligence Management: Converting Data to Profits" was launched with support from CMO Magazine, DM Review, DHSoft, Experian, and Harte-Hanks Trillium Software. (sted Aberdeen's "Customer Intelligence Management: Converting Data to Profits" was launched with support from CMO Magazine, DM Review, DHSoft, Experian, Siebel Systems, and Trillium Software.)

The corrected release reads:

'CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE' EMPOWERS ORGANIZATIONS TO CONVERT DATA TO PROFITS, ACCORDING TO NEW ABERDEENGROUP STUDY

Survey Reveals Leaders Utilize Third-party Service Providers, Business Intelligence, and Customer Data Integration Tools More Often

Improving customer intelligence management practices empowers organizations to profitably define, identify, and respond to high value customers and has become the top motivator for 74% of best in class in creating a corporate culture of customer-centricity, according to Aberdeen's new benchmark report, "Customer Intelligence Management: Converting Data to Profits."

According to the report, companies that exemplify best-in-class practices attained greater than 20% annual improvement in gross revenues and customer acquisition and retention rates. Moreover, leaders are proactively addressing their need to improve the management, analysis, and application of customer intelligence in several critical areas:

--Plans to extend or integrate their CRM systems with other customer intelligence tools for increased visibility and better data analysis capabilities.

--Utilize operational BI and predictive analytics to better respond to high value customers.

--Are more likely to use customer data integration and data quality solutions to incorporate multi-sourced data prior to analysis.

--50% selectively outsource to third-party service providers to augment internal capabilities and processes.

Aberdeen's "Customer Intelligence Management: Converting Data to Profits" was launched with support from CMO Magazine, DM Review, DHSoft, Experian, and Harte-Hanks Trillium Software. The study reveals that leaders share similar approaches and processes:

--Establish cross-functional teams and ownership processes to align IT with line of business users

--Take a long-term approach to growth by defining customer value by lifetime value models

--Centralize customer intelligence management at the corporate level

"Organizations have spent millions capturing, analyzing, and applying customer intelligence with the goal of growing revenues by increasing focus on customer-centric strategy and execution," says Leslie Ament, director of Aberdeen's customer intelligence research practice. "We believe forward-thinking organizations will continue to invest in select technology enablers, process development, performance measurement capabilities, and services that empower them to apply customer intelligence towards better decision-making in support of more profitable growth."

Download a copy of the report: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/source.asp?cid=2503&pid=CIM010306PR

About AberdeenGroup

Aberdeen (www.aberdeen.com) provides fact-based research and insights focused on the global, technology-driven value chain. Its benchmarking, market and solution assessments, sales acceleration programs, and conferences support Global 5000 value chain and technology executives and the solution providers who serve them.