11. Why would a customer database
be so useful for a company such as Forbes or Kodak? What would happen if these companies had not
kept their customer data in database?
A customer database is helpful to companies like Kodak because it lets
them see who their customers are, so they can market specifically to them, and
it lets them know what their customers are purchasing. If these companies did
not have customer databases then they would have to find another way to gather
the same information, IE: surveys. The information that gets housed after a
customer purchases something is crucial in marketing strategies and production
strategies. A company like Kodak could figure out which product is selling a
lot of which is not selling and ramp up production or cut don production. Kodak
could also market to specific age groups or specific regions with the
information they gather from purchases.
An entity would be a customer’s name, and the
attributes would be their address, purchase history. An entity could also be an
age group. Attributes could include specific age, where they are from, what
they purchase, what they would like to purchase.
The profile of buyers for kodaks c130 multi-function
printer can be differentiated from that of people who purchase kodak's more
advanced esp office 6150 printer. Armed with that information Kodak is able to
target each type of customer more precisely with its retail packaging, product
descriptions, and advertising placements. Instead of advertise its entire
ink-jet printer in a broad publication, Kodak will target prospective 6150
buyers through a lower-cost combination of print ads in niche magazines, web
banner ads on selected sits, and e-mail lists of small-office or home-office
owners. Lastly, Kodak’s also though the data base to measure the actual effect
of promotional offers, customer segmentation, and messaging across all of its
channels.
In addition, if the company not kept their customer data in database it
would cause inconvenience and disoriented
to the company. First, the companies are hard to predict the potential
consumer. The consumer taste and preferences is difficult to forecast without
using customer database,the company don't have idea to learn detail about
customer tendency. Besides that,the company can not set a actual target market
without the database collection, because the market trend always changing.
Thus, the company need the information to make an alignment to the production to
satisfy the customer need,so that they can maximize their profit. On the other
hand, the company without the customer database will break off the relationship with the customer. Normally, customer
database is use to keep the customer record, so that the company can keep in
touch with their customer and receive feedback from them. Therefore, the
company can always update their product and service according to the customer
specification.
22. List and describe two entities and
several of their attributes that might be found in Kodak’s marketing database.
There are two entities found in Kodak’s marketing database which is
supplier and part. Oracle customer database and third-party database vendors is
the example of supplier who is collect the Kodak’s customer database and
transfer it to the Kodak’s as a output. However, part is Kodak’s which receive
the database from the supplier and they have to pay money for the supplier to
analysing the customer database. Besides that, they have several attributes
that might be found in Kodak’s marketing database. First and foremost, Oracle
customer database, which maintain data on 50 million customers compiled from
direct purchases and registrations on Kodak’s Web site and photo sharing
site,customer-service interaction, product registrations from retail store
purchases, and interactions from social networks. This situation will help
Kodak’s understanding their customer trend and they are able to do renovate for
their products and services. In addition, third-party database vendors will
supply customer data with demographic and psychographic information, so that
Kodak’s can know the customer wants and
try their best to satisfying the customer preferences. Furthermore, the Kodak’s
company has consolidated data on all of its marketing activities, including
customer targets, campaign plans, budgets , list, and results. On the other
hand, Kodak’s has been able to replace its crude customer “personas” with
detailed in depth profiles of customer groups and buying patterns based on the
actual data. Armed with that information, Kodak is able to target each type of
customer more precisely with its retail packaging, product descriptions , and
advertising placements. Lastly, Kodak can measure the actual effect of
promotional offers, customer segmentations, and messaging across all of its
channels with the customer database.
33.How did better data management improve
each company’s business performance? Give examples of two decisions that were
improved by mining these customer databases.
Data management can imrpove each company’s business performance by
analysing customer database , supplier database and other business partnership
database. From the customer database, the company can finding out about their
customer’s purchasing habits, opinions and preferences. Armed with these
information, company is able to capture the customer need and continuously
update their product and service to fulfill the customer wants. Besides that,
they can also create new products and services to stimulate the existing market.
Moreover, profiling individual customers and groups of customer to market more
effectively and to increase sales. The company can do segmentation market, thus
they will more easier to manage the data record. With the precise database the
company are able to set a target market, so that they can maximize the profit.
Nevertheless, customer database will changing the way the company run their business to improve customer service.
The company will according to the situation of the customer survey to renew the
business operation to convenience the customer.
In addition, supplier database also important for improving company
business performance. Understanding more about your supply chain will help you
establish priorities for working more closely with customers and
suppliers.Businesses that get closer to their suppliers are more likely to get
better performance out of them. There are technological and logistical
steps that can be taken, which we will review shortly – but at the heart of
getting closer to a key supplier is the need to understand how that supplier
works and who its key personnel are, and then build a two-way trust between the
two firms. A small firm that will sack a supplier instantly upon being offered
a marginal cut in prices is not likely to get the best out of its new
supplier – who will (inevitably) reason that it in turn faces being sacked
as soon as a better price comes around the corner. Therefore, data management
have to make a choice to choose the right suppliers. There are few benefit that
choose the right suppliers will getting control of stock and production. A
critical factor in company supply chain is capacity to hold stock of purchased
goods or raw materials. If company cannot hold much stock,then they will need
suppliers that are able to deliver new stock in small quantities at short
notice. On the other hand, if company are able to breathe cost of holding
significant stocks, this may enable the company to save money by buying in
bulk, or to take advantage of price fluctuations in the marketplace. However,
how the company handle stock can have a massive impact on their customer
service and profit margins. Many businesses are now concentrating more on
efficient stock management to cut warehousing costs while still being able to
meet customer demand. To be able to manage company stock more effectively, the
company will need to gather accurate information about the volume of orders
that company business deals with. This will enable the company to assess how
much stock to hold, how much to keep in reserve, how often to replenish etc.
Besides that, for many businesses, there is a lot of scope to smooth and
simplify production processes to save time, cut unnecessary costs and become
more competitive as a result. Automating the links between company various
production processes means that information can flow more quickly. Once company
were identified logjams and established what is causing delays, you can then
remove unnecessary obstacles and streamline processes.
Lastly, at its simplest, a successful business partnership can mean that
company start to win
business that company would not have won without the partnership. Thus,
data management play a vital role to keep partnership record and continuous
coordinate with each other. Each partner can offer the other partner access to
or an introduction to new markets. Therefore, the company can access to a new
market to introduce their product so that they can also increase the market
share. Besides that, one partner is able to add value to a product or service
that the other partner can then use to create new business. The partnership can
share their technologies and knowledge to each other to improve every level of
department, so that they can work more efficiency and effectiveness.
Furthermore,data
mining derives its name from the similarities between searching for valuable
business information in a large database and mining a mountain for a vein of
valuable ore. There can divide into two: Automatic prediction of trends and behaviours and Automatic discovery of previously unknown patterns. In the Automatic prediction of trends and behaviours,data mining automates the process
of finding predictive information in large databases. Questions that
traditionally required extensive hands-on analysis can now be answered quickly
and directly from the data. A typical example of a predictive problem is
targeted marketing. Data mining uses data on past promotional mailings to
identify the targets most likely to maximize return on investment in future
mailings. Other predictive problems include forecasting bankruptcy and other
forms of default, and identifying segments of a population likely to respond
similarly to given events.
However, within Automatic
discovery of previously unknown patterns, data mining tools sweep through
databases and identify previously hidden patterns. An example of pattern
discovery is the analysis of retail sales data to identify seemingly unrelated
products that are often purchased together. Other pattern discovery problems
include detecting fraudulent credit card transactions and identifying anomalous
data that could represent data entry keying errors. In the short word, mining
customer database can improve the sales market and predict the customer need
and wants in the future, so that the company can forecast the potential market
to maximize profit.
