Teradata Announces a Power Threesome

Teradata today unveiled its biggest new product in the past 18 months--the latest version of what was formerly named Teradata CRM--Teradata Relationship Manager Version 6, at the company's annual partners conference in Orlando. The software includes J2EE functionality and multichannel capabilities, as well as a new GUI interface--three of the tool's 100 features. "We worked with our advisory council to help us add the features that our customers wanted," said Sam Gragg, Teradata director of customer management solutions marketing. "The functionality in Teradata Relationship Manager Version 6 is focused around the three most important dimensions of customer dialogue. These dimensions are increased relevance, more exact market timing, and creation of significant customer offers. "Relevance refers to the ability to analyze customer data from across all business lines and channels to generate and prioritize highly targeted value propositions, Gragg said. "Enhanced timeliness comes from the ability to provide fresh data from the Teradata warehouse to make decisions and 'act in the moment' when customer behavior signals an immediate opportunity. Integrated analytics and operational capabilities create individual customer insights that heighten personalization--to drive intense significance into offers that differentiates them from competing offers." The J2EE and new GUI changes provide the software with a more customized, user-driven look and feel. The previous GUI interface had been developed in 1997. The software provides multiple views of the data, analysis, campaigns, workflow, metrics and other dimensions of the marketing process. These views are tailored to the roles of the marketing and campaign manager, and to the developer and marketing analyst. The power user manager accessing the software might configure the tool so he sees a white board, according to the company, enabling him to change his use of information depending on his daily needs, while another manager who uses the software less frequently might opt for a more structured look and feel. Novice users today are more technically capable than the novice users of only a few years ago, according to Gragg, so the new version doesn't force them to use as many help tools, though they are available. The multichannel capability includes browser-based access and helps ensure campaigns are consistent across different channels, providing easier integration with support for standard hardware and software. Version 6 enables users to receive alerts and change marketing campaigns on the fly, Gragg says. "Users can do more complex segmentation of customers and make multistep changes in marketing campaigns." The manager can write rules for data changes. For example, a bank might be targeting customers with excellent credit scores for low-interest loans, with a different offer to customers with lower scores. If a customer's credit rating suddenly drops, the offer would change to the one for the customers with lower scores, potentially helping companies with customer follow-up efforts. The software employs reusable objects, enabling reuse, editing, and copying of segmented information. Different groups within an organization can work on different objects, in any order, according to Teradata. These groups can also make experimental changes in objects without effecting ongoing campaigns. Because objects don't have to be built from scratch for every use, it can reduce cycle time to create marketing campaigns and decrease dependence on information technology assistance. Leveraging of J2EE clustering and the Teradata database increases the scalability of the program over the previous version, according to Teradata. Gragg expects these new features to prompt existing customers to migrate to the new software when it becomes available in the fourth quarter. The new software provides the operational and analytical capabilities customers are demanding, says Sheryl Kingstone, Yankee Group program manager for customer-centric strategies. "We've been counseling CRM vendors for years to build solutions that do a better job of simplifying and integrating analytical and operational CRM to optimize the relevance, timeliness, and significance of customer treatment. Leading customer management solution providers will succeed long term only if they deliver on the promised value of customer management." Related articles: i2 Technologies and Teradata Team Teradata Upgrades its CRM Product The Money Tree A financial services company estimates an 850 percent ROI from implementing Teradata's data warehouse and CRM solutions.