Sequent Computer Systems Inc., Beaverton, Ore., is launching a data warehouse product that it says can bridge the gap between customer information files and the point of customer interaction.
Decision Advantage RM-or relationship marketing-was developed in cooperation with Lloyds/TSB Bank and National Westminster Bank in the United Kingdom and Credit Lyonnais in France.
Sequent sees the product as a way to increase sales to financial institutions-and to do more domestically. Half the company's $836 million of revenue comes from other countries.
Working internationally, "we have honed our skills and our partnering capabilities" with banks, said Aslam Khadar, Sequent's manager of worldwide decision support marketing.
The customer information system for a medium-size to large bank could cost between $1 million and $5 million and take six to nine months to put in place. The installation would include a combination of hardware, software, and services.
"We built the 'plumbing' for Lloyds/TSB to allow for proactive telemarketing," said Mr. Khadar of the British bank project, which has been completed.
Sequent spent more than a year at Credit Lyonnais building a new customer warehouse system to replace 20 data bases scattered throughout France. Sequent has a five-man team on site to assist Credit Lyonnais in deploying the system to serve eight million customers and 2,000 branches.
The bank was attracted to Sequent because it was "highly specialized" in data warehousing and data bases, said Douwe van den Oever, head of research and development for retail banking at Credit Lyonnais in Paris.
"Market positioning is good in the United States, less so in Europe," he said. "Because we had little experience in the field, we needed someone with understanding," and Sequent won over three other contenders.
"It did a clean, well-structured, good, professional job and was very reactive to problems with data," the French banker said. In the end, Credit Lyonnais got into quantitative marketing, which was "similar to a cultural revolution and needed to be done slowly."
Mr. van den Oever said he expects improvements in direct marketing and segmentation techniques.
Natwest will also rely on Decision Advantage RM for customer information marketing. Completion is scheduled for September.
"The legacy system has functionality," said Mr. Khadar. "This infrastructure allows you to take the functionality and present it intelligently."
From a system integration standpoint, Sequent is competing against NCR Corp.
Sequent and others in the data-base technology area are dealing with a significant degree of complexity, said Henry Morris, director of data warehousing research for International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. "You're talking about changing the way an organization thinks in order to become customer-centric."
"Essentially Sequent is right in tackling this problem by looking at data warehousing and the analytic systems and then seeing how they are going to relate to specific activities in order to manage a marketing campaign," he said.
