Fleet Financial to Spend $38 Million on DW & Targeted Support        10.14.97
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ComputerWorld has reported that Fleet Financial Group, Inc. is spending almost $38 million to build a data warehouse and a new customer marketing system as well as hire a 50-person team to run the analysis software it will use to develop more targeted advertising and promotions.

The new marketing approach requires workers who know how to use database marketing software, plus statistical and decision-support analysts. None of those skills was much in evidence in the Boston-based bank's marketing department before the data warehouse project began, according to ComputerWorld.

"We have a good marketing staff, but they aren't statisticians or data miners," said Randy Grossman, senior vice president of customer data management and analysis at Fleet. "It would have been like building a power boat and not having anybody who knows how to drive it."

Fleet isn't alone in having to focus on new talent, according to ComputerWorld. Novel software may give companies more targeted and effective methods of reaching out to customers, but companies also have to infuse or augment their marketing departments with people who can handle the technology.

"There's a real shortage of talent in this area," said Scott Nelson, an analyst at Gartner Group, Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "You need people who are technical and marketing-oriented, but finding them is hard."

Uncovering experts who know both technology and the brokerage business has been "extremely difficult," said Mary Kelley, vice president of database and relationship marketing at Charles Schwab & Co. in San Francisco. " And I don't think there's any real strong education process going on to create those people," she said.

As part of its massive data warehousing project, Fleet is installing database marketing software developed by Exchange Applications, Inc. in Boston. It also plans to use statistical analysis software from SAS Institute, Inc. in Cary, N.C., and query tools from Cognos, Inc. in Ottawa.

The team of analysts and database marketers that Grossman puts together will work hand in hand with Fleet's marketing department to create and fine-tune promotions that target different groups of customers. Grossman has 35 people working for him and said he expects to add 15 more as the data warehouse starts being used early next year.

Federal Express Corp. faced the same staffing need a year ago when it built a marketing data mart and installed Exchange's ValEx software and other analytical tools to move away from mass marketing campaigns.

"We had to get a completely new set of skills," said Sharanjit Singh, director of marketing analysis at FedEx in Memphis. The delivery company's marketing department now has a mix of traditional marketers and technology-savvy analysts. "Everything is basically done in a team now," Singh said.

The changes have given FedEx the flexibility to develop marketing campaigns that target anywhere from 5,000 to 700,000 customers. "We can slice and dice just as much as we want to and send different things to different people based on what they likely will respond to," Singh said.

One statistician hired by Fleet was a former nuclear physicist with a business degree from Cornell.