Big Data Is Not So Big: Dun & Bradstreet Empowers Data-Driven Small Business

Campaign/FTC disclosure: This is a sponsored product review. I will receive compensation for this post. I only work with companies I feel have great products, services and offerings. In accordance with my blog disclosure statement, I will only work with and showcase products, events and/or companies I believe my readers will benefit from. Dun & Bradstreet has hired me as an influencer to help them raise awareness about their new Business Solutions Insights Microsoft Office 365 partnership with Ingram Micro Cloud. I am not formally employed by Dun & Bradstreet. All thoughts and viewpoints are created and written by me. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Image courtesy of www.dnb.com.

Big data has long been a debilitating term in the business world.

When it comes to business, we all would prefer to make better, more informed decisions. In order to achieve this, we have to collectively become comfortable with the notion of being data-driven. Making data-driven decisions has little to do with how “big” your data is, but rather how you make the data that you collect every day through transactions, interactions and prospecting work for you.

For many companies – be they Fortune 500 or small businesses – this data and information is often unstructured. This information both lives and dies in different systems, processes, and in some cases, people within organizations.

The key to being able to use this information to the advantage of the business is to aggregate all of your business insights simply in one place for anyone in the organization to use.

I had a unique opportunity to chat with my friends at Dun & Bradstreet® to discuss their recent participation at the Ingram Micro Cloud Summit held last week in Phoenix, Arizona. I also had the opportunity to get an exclusive demo of their new Business Solutions Tool for Office 365 available via the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace®.

Image courtesy of IngramMicro.com.

 Big data is not so big – when you break it down.

One of the recurring questions about big data is: What makes it so complex? In speaking  with Karlos Palmer, VP of Global Alliances and Partnership Strategies and Nakul Kapoor,  Senior Director of Partner Enablement at Dun & Bradstreet, they break down the  complexity of data into what they call the four Vs of big data:

  • Volume – The scale of data. This is how much data you have stored and living across your business.
  • Variety – The many different forms of data. From demographic information to customer profiles, the range of data you collect is both useful and innumerable.
  • Velocity– The analysis of streaming data. With the connectivity of things growing every day, there is a constant flow of data streaming at all times. Dun & Bradstreet® reported at last week’s Ingram Micro Cloud Summit that there are as many as 18.9 billion network connections (2.5 connections per every person on earth).
  • Veracity– The uncertainty of data. Unreliable data is costly to your business. It has been reported that poor data costs the U.S. Economy around $3.1 trillion per year. Somewhere along the data continuum, there has to be a cleansing of your data to be able to use it effectively.

The businesses that have yet to implement an operational call-to-action for data struggle in one of more of these areas.

As a small business owner, I understand the value of making decisions rooted in good data. What prevents me from exploring my options is my concern for how much it will cost me to implement a solution and the ease of use.

After seeing the demo of Dun & Bradstreet’s Business Solutions Add-in for Office 365, I am excited about the possibilities this product holds for small to mid-size businesses to make more insightful, data-inspired decisions.

Less is truly more.

Think about how you have traditionally created reports in Microsoft Excel® and imagine even the smallest sets of data reconciled with Dun & Bradstreet’s insights – only to give you more valuable information than what you started with.

Here’s how the Dun &Bradstreet Business Solutions Tool works:

  • Dun & Bradstreet has accumulated a collection of data around sales, marketing, supply chain and credit risk that spans its 175-year old history.
  • They have created an add-in in the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace that can be used with your Microsoft Office 365.
  • Through your normal reporting in Excel, you can take something as simple as a spreadsheet with name, email, and address – and have Dun & Bradstreet run your information against its over 30,000 sources.
  • What you get depends on which of the nine modules you use across sales, marketing, supply chain and their advanced data tools are insights like:

– Understand Your Customers™ module – this module allows you to bring in a minimal amount of data points and in return gives you insights on your customer’s history, market behavior, etc.

– Get Prospects List™ module- this module allows you to search your customer list and get a targeted view of customers you should be meeting with when you go on the road for meetings and conferences, etc.

  • Your data is now reliable because it is driven by Dun & Bradstreet’s D-U-N-S Number® that connects demographic information with just about everything a single business does over the lifetime of their business (credit standing, sales and marketing, industry, years in business, business hierarchies, etc.).
  • All of the segmentation and data cleansing is done for you. Every record comes back with a rating for Dun & Bradstreet’s success in matching your record with their sources.

How much will it cost you?

This is my favorite part. The Dun & Bradstreet Business Solutions add-in is available to us with a minimum investment of $25.00 per month (note: The price may increase if you have to purchase the Microsoft Office 365 suite as well).  However, if you are already a Microsoft Office 365 customer, you can simply download this free add-in and enable it by depositing increments of $25.00 into your Dun & Bradstreet Business Solutions account.

Every time you run a module, the product will draw from your existing balance. Most queries charge $0.75 per record or per list of 25 records.

How can you get it?

Dun & Bradstreet’s Business Solutions Insights for Office 365 can be purchased in the Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace by clicking here. You can also purchase it through any Ingram Micro Cloud reseller.

Enterprise quality solutions are now available for SMBs. This is an exciting step in all of us becoming data-driven inspired business owners.

To read the press release regarding Dun & Bradstreet’s partnership with Microsoft Office 365 and Ingram Micro Cloud click here.

 

 

Are We There Yet: The State of Digital Marketing and Data Adoption

Campaign/FTC disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I will receive compensation for this post. I only work with companies I feel have great products, services and offerings. In accordance with my blog disclosure statement, I will only work with and showcase products, events and/or companies I believe my readers will benefit from. Dun & Bradstreet hired me as a blogger to cover their Data- Inspired Digital Strategies Forum Event in New York on December 1st, 2015.  I am not formally employed by Dun & Bradstreet. All thoughts and viewpoints are created and written by me. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Image courtesy of Dun & Bradstreet.

Image courtesy of Dun & Bradstreet

It turns out the answer to the aforementioned question is a resounding “no”. There are a lot of ideas and theories about how businesses can effectively engage with their respective markets. Unfortunately, the limiting factor at the moment is not that we don’t have enough data or even opportunity to be actionable- but that we have too much data and very little adoption of using it for most purposes in business. This was just one of the many takeaways I gleaned from the panel discussions at last week’s Dun and Bradstreet’s Data-Inspired Digital Marketing Strategies Forum – which took place at the Sofitel Hotel in New York City on, December 1st.

Image courtesy of Dun & Bradstreet

Image courtesy of Dun & Bradstreet

The big question of the day was: How can we use data to better reach the right people at the right time?

Have you noticed that many of the ads that you view online now seem somewhat tailored to things you search or products, services and people you are interested in? What about the sudden shift in voice of several of the leading brands? The vintage use of catchy phrases, jingles and an impersonal tone is no longer the foundation of good marketing or good business. We’re in an age of rapid transformation on all fronts of business. Think about the last commercial or ad you viewed. Chances are the commercials or ads you viewed didn’t just cut-to-the-chase and urge you to purchase something. Of late, marketing is starting to sound and feel a little more personal. It is almost as if the company trying to get your attention had you in mind when they created said service, product etc. What is clear is that businesses must meet the customer where they are by making sure they are engaging with prospective customers with the right messaging or solution at the time when they are poised to make a purchasing decision. Anudit Vikram, SVP, Chief Product Officer-Audience Solutions for Dun & Bradstreet shared that: “Digital Marketing is about how many integrated touch points we can have with prospective customers across all channels.”

It turns out looking at “quantity” of touch points alone isn’t a comprehensive marketing approach either. Businesses have to also be mindful that the data they are harnessing is quality. Your insights and planning will only be as good as the data that has informed it. This is where many companies are missing the mark. It is key to take a step back and consider what the overall plan is. As I have mentioned in several articles this year, you cannot do the “data thing” just to do it. It was echoed in several of the talks that there needs to be clarity around the outcomes businesses are trying to achieve. It was also strongly suggested that businesses have a concrete plan for how they will harvest and synthesize the data that will facilitate digital marketing initiatives.

To ensure that you are on the right track to having good and clean data, do the following:

  • Start small by piloting your data collection on one initiative or program. This allows you to triage any issues and standardize your measurements before extending your methods to other areas of the business.
  • Be clear on what measures and methods you will use to measure outcomes. Data is only as good as its inputs.
  • Implement the right technology resources to facilitate the collection, evaluation and application of your data. Technology implemented correctly can be helpful in centralizing the collection and management of your data- decreasing the necessity of having to manipulate the data regularly due to errors.

It is clear that the way we conduct business and market our services has changed given the digital climate we are experiencing. What isn’t as clear is: How do we get people to consistently make use of the data that is available them?  Moreover, how do we get people to see that the use of data (be it in marketing or otherwise) as an opportunity and not as a threat?

Image courtesy of Dun & Bradstreet

Image courtesy of Dun & Bradstreet

Looking towards 2016 and evaluating the state of data adoption and data-driven marketing Josh Mueller, SVP of Digital Operations at Dun &Bradstreet stated: “2016 is an inflection point for digital marketing.” That is to say that we’re at a prime point on the trajectory and evolution of digital marketing where we are poised to “target, capture and convert” our most prized customers. It is time to decide whether your business can survive with or without the use of data insights. Better yet, can you afford to continue blindly marketing to your customer segment while settling for marginal responses and outcomes. Let 2016 be your “inflection point” and reflect on how you can start putting the data you have today to work in an effort to improve your business across-the-board.

 For further insights from the event, check out two of the speaker presentations below:

Theresa Kushner, VP of Enterprise Data Management- Data, Data Everywhere: Making the most of it in the 21st Century.

Josh Mueller, SVP of Digital Operations at Dun & Bradstreet and Anudit Vikram, SVP Chief Product Officer-Audience Solutions for Dun & Bradstreet- Data-Inspired Digital Marketing.

 

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