STIBO GROUP IS HELPS MAKE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT DRIVE GROWTH AT THE HOLIDAY COTTAGES GROUP.

Organising product information for sales and marketing literature is difficult when you have a static range of lines. When you have a catalogue of more than 9,000 individual items which can change from week to week, the job of ensuring that your customers have up to date information becomes much harder. The maturity of the Internet as a valuable sales and marketing resource has made it a little easier, but data management - keeping your data up to date - is still a major challenge.

Kim Christensen of market leading cross-media data and document management solutions provider, the Stibo Group, explains how it has been helping UK's leading self catered cottage rental agency, The Holiday Cottages Group (HCG), to refine its data management processes for the last decade. This relationship has produced brochure/Internet publishing information in a fraction of the time it used to take.

The task of producing product literature is one which has haunted sales and marketing departments for years. The major problem is that the collateral is only as good as the data it contains, and historically the process of publishing product catalogues has been a long and tortuous one. Having spent considerable time in production - days spent checking, re-checking, proofing and signing off endless pages - all too often the data can be out of date very quickly (and sometimes before the catalogue even reaches the customer.)

MEETING THE CHALLENGES

This was a problem which faced HCG, as they published not one, but 11 main brochures, and a series of updates and on the fly promotional leaflets. The company manages more than 9,000 different properties in the UK, France and Ireland and produces an annual sales and marketing catalogue for each of it's regions across its range of brands; English Country Cottages, Country Cottages in Scotland, Country Cottages in France, Country Cottages in Ireland, Cottages4you.com, Country Holidays, Blakes Cottages and Blakes Holiday Boating. The development of the Internet has provided HCG with another sales and marketing tool, which brings its own challenges and benefits. Business is fast realising that in order to provide customers with the latest information, sourcing and managing the workflow process became a vital part of the company's sales and marketing operations.

Data management is central to the development of all catalogues. It is essential that all information is as up to date as possible, and with the web this has become increasingly significant as the world has become an increasingly 24-hour society. The increased availability of product data for customers and a wider potential customer base for business have been at the heart of the relationship between Stibo and HCG. As the market requirements have changed, Stibo's flexibility and heritage within the Information Technology industry - dating back more than two hundred years - has enabled the Holiday Cottages Group company to refine their processes and provide the increased levels of product information its customers require.

Dee Noble, Brochure Production Manager at the Group, explains that when their work with Stibo began it was to help them to meet a specific deadline. 'Back in 1991, we were looking for a pre-press supplier, to help us to produce a couple of catalogues to a very tight deadline following issues with an existing supplier, and Stibo's expertise in this area is unrivalled.

'The Holiday Cottages Group has a built a reputation for innovating, and from this initial work it became apparent that by implementing new data management processes we could save time and money, whilst providing a more comprehensive service to our customers.'

REFINING WORKFLOW

In order to ensure that the data on each of the 9,000 properties contained in HCG's many catalogues was up to date, data management became a major challenge. It was common for the company to make amendments to product data on an annual basis, during the pre-production of the next set of annual catalogues. With the increasing number of sales channels emerging during the early nineties, Stibo's Dale Woodley, says that it became apparent that considerable savings could be made. 'Following our initial work with the Holiday Cottages Group, it was obvious that we could help the company refine their data management, for improved performance and increased competitive advantage. Our expertise in cross media single source publishing allowed us to suggest where workflow processes and data management improvements could significantly improve productivity.'

Sales and Marketing professionals have, until recently, accepted that printed literature will always have a limited shelf life, and that it is simply part of the inflexibility of the medium. The Internet changed this because it is possible to update data on a minute-by-minute basis providing businesses with the ability to offer customers the latest product data information to complement the existing paper-based sales and
marketing literature. At HCG it also highlighted the need for effective data management processes to ensure that changes were implemented as quickly and effectively as possible whilst retaining data quality and integrity.

The Internet is only part of the equation though, with both internal and external data management key to effective information processing. HCG developed a powerful internal product information interface which allows sales staff on the company's telephone booking facility to benefit from viewing the latest information on the company's product database. HCG's Noble explains, 'Data management is now a central part of ensuring that we provide our customers with the latest information about our properties. We compliment our paper publications with up-to-date additional information about the properties and local amenities, extra photographs, virtual tours and also include recent customer testimonials. When we started working with Stibo to manage our data more effectively, we were amending product information once a year - we now make almost daily amendments.'

ENSURING DATA INTEGRITY

'The flexibility which Stibo has helped us to build into our data processes means we are able to provide current information to all our sales and marketing staff, without requiring individuals to consciously check for changes. By using a single source of data for all our internal and external publishing the data on the sales operators system is always the latest available.'

Dale Woodley explains, 'Effective data management is not only about the increased information that HCG can offer its clients, it is also an essential component to enterprise resource planning. As a result of the refined processes we have helped to develop at HCG, we are able to highlight where any blockages in the data flow are occurring.'

'This helps to give managers a better understanding of where issues and challenges are occurring with specific properties, or regions. It is essential to know which properties are unavailable for any reason to enable HCG to source new alternatives, and to keep customers happy and help drive increased performance.'

In addition, refining the data management process has helped the company to address its strategic business objectives. In its bid to champion new innovations and drive competitive advantage, The Vacation Rental Division of the Cendant Corporation of which HCG is a part of, has recently acquired a number of European holiday cottage companies - increasing market penetration. This growth also impacts on the amount and diversity of individual 'products' which it must manage, reinforcing the importance of effective data management. Having defined successful processes, the company has proven its ability to handle an increased level of customer enquiries, and larger number of properties.

According to Dee Noble, the benefits both for the company and its customers have been marked, 'We have noticed a significant increase in Internet sales in the last twelve months, and anticipate this trend
continuing. The refinements we have
made to our data management processes over the last decade are allowing us to co-ordinate up to the minute data accuracy, with truly multi-channel sales and marketing campaigns. Data management has become a central part of maintaining competitive advantage and increasing sales.'

KEY DRIVER

Data management is perhaps the secret, but most important driver for today's multi-channelled sales environment. Effective processes are enabling the world's most forward-thinking businesses to harness all available channels and reach an increasing amount of potential customers, safe in the knowledge that their product data is an effective sales and marketing tool. According to Stibo's Woodley, data has become the first line of defence for business continuance. 'In the information age, data is king. Businesses who fail to manage their product data effectively, are risking their long-term success - there is no starker message for businesses who fail.'

ENDS