SUBJECT: &NAME Group &NAME - &NUM January &NUM This is sent to you by &NAME Group - ------- A STRATEGY FOR &NAME SERVICES MASTER CLASS SERIES -------- &NAME &NAME and &NAME Group 's Research Director , &NAME &NAME are hosting a new series of Master &NAME on Web Service Strategies throughout &NAME &NAME during &NAME and March &NUM . This Master Class will explore &NUM key aspects of Web services crucial to a successful Web services strategy : The Economics of Web Services ; Web Services and Integration ; Web Services and Business Process Management and a Strategy for Web Services . For more information , or to register to attend any of these events , please visit : &WEBSITE &NAME Group are also hosting &NUM one-day Master &NAME in &NAME . How to Gain Competitive Advantage IT &NAME Master &NAME will be hosted by &NAME &NAME and &NAME &NAME . For further information , please visit : &WEBSITE Dear &NAME Please find below this week 's issue of &NAME , written exclusively by &NAME Group Analysts . DISCOVERING A STRATEGY Discovery - whether of information by an individual , or of services by an organisation - is essential for the effective use of the &NAME . The Web is an increasingly tangled morass of data , the vast majority of which is not relevant to specific searches ; nevertheless , search engines are regularly deceived into delivering hits that will waste the time of any searcher . This is annoying for an end-user , but potentially very expensive for a business , which will lose productive employee time to sifting through search results . Ensuring the filtering of information in a dependable manner is therefore a real business opportunity at both the individual and corporate levels , and at present the dominant force in this space is &NAME . THE BIG &NAME &NAME has rapidly risen as a force to be reckoned with in the search field , due to the strength of its algorithms and rapid brand creation , but it is now also positioning itself as a potential rival to the established portal businesses , such as &NAME ! , &NAME , and &NAME 's &NAME &NAME . These sites have made considerable use of &NAME 's leading search technology , which is increasingly placing them in potentially awkward positions . On the &NUM hand , &NAME searches are regularly driving new visitors to their sites , and indeed &NAME ! has been utilising &NAME search technology since &NUM . On the other , &NAME is adding functionality and features , such as news and shopping capabilities , that undermine some of the core businesses involved in these sites , and its influence is constantly growing . As part of its response to this threat , &NAME ! has recently acquired &NAME , a search company based on technology that failed to compete with &NAME . No announcement has yet been made that &NAME will replace the use of &NAME at &NAME ! , but this is clearly only a matter of timing . On the face of things , this seems an uncertain strategy , as the &NAME search technology is perceived as being inferior to that of &NAME . However , &NAME ! has clearly recognised that in order to protect its long-term interests it must avoid any dependence on third-party search technology , particularly when this is provided by an increasingly competitive business . Much of the real value in the long-term discovery market will be in the fee-based provision of service-oriented searches in the Web services arena , which will attract corporate business . Emerging standards , including the Universal Discovery Description and &NAME ( &NAME ) , and the recently announced WS-Policy , will combine to simplify the process of providing and acquiring business services on-line . However , these initiatives will not initially serve the needs of many smaller companies , which will lack the developmental resources required to utilise them ; this leaves a vast discovery market that the leading brand portals will be able to enter as providers of service . &NAME GROUP OPINION:- The search industry has consolidated very rapidly in recent years , and &NAME is the clear winner at the individual user level . If the portals are to succeed in preventing their core businesses from being leeched away by the expansion of &NAME into new territories , they must begin to make more decisive moves to position themselves as credible service providers in the discovery space ; if this is to be done successfully , it will require investments in both technology and brand creation . The portals must position themselves as discovery service providers now , which will require investments in search technology such as that made by &NAME ! , or they may find that &NAME will dominate that market as well . MAKING DATA QUALITY COUNT It does n't matter how efficiently a company 's &NAME , or &NAME solutions are able to group and segment customers and their data to support the latest marketing campaign or promotional mail shot . If the source data itself is of a poor quality , then the information extracted may already have been compromised . When you also consider the high levels of project failure reported within customer facing IT sectors , it should be seen as a fundamental issue to ensure that data quality and accuracy is made a prime consideration . THE BIG &NAME Many enterprise level organisations keep commercial information about their customers , and the products and services that they provide across a number of data stores . Sometimes this may cause an inability to correctly identify customers , or alternatively to identify the same customers more than once . All of which can cause important customers to receive incorrectly addressed , duplicate , or inappropriate information . The results being , possible lost sales opportunities , money wasted on capturing and maintaining useless or duplicate records , and probably most importantly from a corporate perspective , presenting an image to the outside world of inefficiency . There are also other issues to be considered , perhaps fraud prevention may be an important area , especially to those delivering services in the financial sectors , or the prevention of money laundering could be a key issue . In each case the quality of the source data is important , and lack of data quality can lead to undesirable activities being hidden . Holding and maintaining records on a database , whether customer , product , or other record types has a measurable cost both in terms of storage , maintenance , and support activities . Therefore , the value that can be derived from deploying a good quality data cleansing tool can be measured in a number of ways including : reduced staff costs in the customer support and systems maintenance areas , reduced mailing costs by ensuring that offers made are correctly targeted and individual customer duplications are removed , and increased sales revenue through having the ability to accurately identify cross-selling and up-selling opportunities . &NAME GROUP &NAME Very few vendors working in the mainstream &NAME , &NAME , and &NAME arenas would argue against the fact that data quality , or lack thereof , is one of the main issues when attempting to deliver effective business solutions . Our view would be that there are at least &NUM major areas of concern to be considered when looking at improving data quality within an organisation . Firstly , there is the initial issue of data cleansing , which often in the past has focused on one-shot attempts to clean up customer and associated data with a specific goal in mind . Secondly , and an issue for any organisation that is serious about the quality of data that it continues to maintain , there is the question of how to permanently maintain data integrity once the initial cleansing exercise has been completed . When selecting a solution to imbed or run alongside mainstream infrastructure systems we would recommend that the selected system should be capable of providing both batch and real-time cleansing facilities especially in environments where data change is dynamic , and especially where customer contact is made on the basis of the organisations in depth knowledge of the customer . SPENDING BEFORE INFORMATION Despite figures that show that only &NUM in &NUM members of the public are accessing Government Web sites , e-tail Web sites would appear to be faring rather better . As is usually the case , the trend has been set in the US with customer sales reaching just under US $ &NUM billion in &NUM , but it appears that the &NAME is now following &NAME , and is in serious catch up mode with on-line shopping growing &NUM times faster in the &NAME than in the US at present . Although consumers still have concerns over the security of e-tail sites , there are advantages to shopping on-line and it would appear that these advantages are at last making a breakthrough . THE BIG &NAME The Government has recently vowed to dedicate more funds to increasing the number of people who access its services on-line . However , it appears that e-tailers hardly have to try . The interactive &ORG ( &NAME ) has found that &NUM million &NAME shoppers bought on-line in November &NUM , spending &NUM billion pounds . This figure is expected to rise to more than &NUM in the next few months according to a &NAME poll carried out on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry ( &NAME ) . The &NUM billion pound figure for November is the biggest ever amount spent on-line in the &NAME , and represents a &NUM rise on October 2002's figures and a spectacular &NUM rise on the same period for the previous year . The benefits of buying on-line include time and monetary savings , home delivery of goods , and better consumer rights . These benefits have , however , always been available and do not explain the huge rise in e-tail sales . &NAME has been improved , which may have helped to allay some people 's concerns , although a survey carried out by &NAME &NAME found that around &NUM of its respondents still felt ' uncomfortable ' giving out their credit card information on-line , and similar percentages were worried about the security of on-line financial transactions , and on-line privacy in general . The rise in broadband take-up is also thought to be partly responsible for the rise in e-tail sales , with its ability to make browsing and accessing e-tail sites even faster . e-tailers in the &NAME have been found to be better at converting browsers into customers . Nielsen//Net Ratings found that of the &NUM large developed economies they surveyed , the &NAME converted the most browsers into paying customers . Other research by &NAME also revealed that more people would be prepared to shop on-line if there were better guarantees about issues such as security and the quality of merchandise . The &NAME Government is helping to promote on-line buying by , for example , publishing examples of people who have benefited by making purchases on-line and generally promoting the on-line message . &NAME GROUP &NAME Ease of use issues are important where both Government and e-tail Web sites are concerned , but at the end of the day shopping i.e. spending money on things you want or need , especially from the comfort of your own home , is far more attractive than finding out information mostly concerning the payment of bills , or mundane issues such as rubbish collection . It may also be a case of preference and tradition . People often wish to hear a real person tell them local government type information or to deal with a complaint , but are quite happy to shop alone . &NAME e-tail sites are adept at attracting browsers and enticing them to part with their cash and can be secure in the knowledge that improvements to security will result in increased numbers of on-line consumers . OUTLOOK WINTRY ( FOR &NAME 'S IT STAFF ) &NUM saw IT jobs continuing to be axed by employers in the &NAME . Reductions in end-users ' IT spending reined in the requirement for development and integration expertise from consultancies , as well as causing the loss of jobs amongst in-house IT staff . IT budgets are likely to be severely limited in &NUM , with forecast growth as low as &NUM . THE BIG &NAME Looking back only a few years , many factors combined to produce a boom in &NAME IT employment that will almost certainly never be repeated . The recession of the early 1990's left businesses and the public sector with a backlog of change requirements , and facing a looming deadline to do something to address the &NAME issue . These circumstances saw many embark on the wholesale replacement of enterprise systems , by customised redevelopment or more commonly by the procurement of package solutions , both of which were readily supplied by a hungry and helpful IT industry . &NAME of utilities , and the rapid growth of the mobile telecommunications industry were also significant drivers of IT spending . After the millennium , and the loss of confidence in dot-anything there has seemed an uncertainty about how to deploy IT budget to best advantage . The Government 's determined spending is a sole exception , perhaps unfettered by such considerations . Organisations ' current IT spending plans reveal the priorities for the near future to be asset protection and consolidation . Such investment as there is will be aimed towards security , &NAME ( to derive value from existing data ) , content management ( with the same objective ) , or application integration ( to enhance value from legacy systems and other existing software ) . Like an increasing proportion of business requirements , these will be addressed with maximum use of packaged solutions in order to hasten implementation and Return On &NAME ( &NAME ) . &NAME has proved attractive to many companies , enabling them to reduce staff numbers and stabilise or reduce spending on IT . The service provider to whom in-house IT staff have been transferred use the human resources flexibly , according to which of its customers need bodies from the pool of expertise , achieving more efficient and dynamic deployment of staff . Overall , the number of IT resources required is reduced . Indeed , the outsourcing providers themselves increasingly consolidate and merge , gaining further efficiency via reduction in numbers of consultants . &NAME GROUP &NAME Advice for those hoping to thrive or perhaps even survive at a time of so much aggregation must be to work with a significant market player . Skills in greatest demand change constantly , but nevertheless must be kept up to date - understanding what is shaping the employment market place is the best guide to what skills will be needed ( &NAME Group 's analysis is an invaluable aid ) . Ominously for some , offshore service providers have already provided cost-efficient expert resource , and are likely to build on their success by competing more directly in the &NAME market . &NAME Group has built a considerable reputation , not only for the quality of its technical research , but also for the ability to relate complex technical issues to the needs of business . For further details on &NAME Group Subscription Services please contact &NAME &NAME : &NAME &NUM ( &NUM ) &NUM &NUM or e-mail : mailto : &EMAIL This e-mail was sent to &EMAIL If you would prefer not to receive further messages from this sender : &NUM Click on the Reply button . &NUM Replace the Subject field with the word REMOVE . &NUM Click the &NAME button . You will receive one additional e-mail message confirming your removal .