In October 2004, Experian, the global information solutions company, acquired QAS, the leader in address data quality software. Jane Ward of QAS recently sat down with Rick Erwin, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Development at Experian Marketing Solutions, and Jonathan Hulford-Funnell, Chief Operating Officer of QAS, to talk about the changes the companies have undergone, and how the acquisition affects clients.
How does Experian’s acquisition
of QAS affect clients of both companies?
RE: Quite simply, our working together gives our clients more product
and service options to choose from. We have clients who have been
using our longer-run batch data integrity services who have never
had a point-of-entry data integrity solution. So QAS, with front-end
address validation software, really rounds out our offering.
JHF: A classic example of what Rick is talking about is a hospital
we were working with in New Jersey. They had a serious problem with
collections, because their addresses were inaccurate. Their collection
agency couldn’t find the patients in order to bill them. We
supplied them with QuickAddress to validate addresses, and then
mentioned that we, through Experian, also could provide them with
the database of employers in New Jersey. So when a patient provides
employer-based healthcare information, the employer data fields
are checked upon entry. It’s just another way to provide more
value to our clients.
Are you planning on developing any joint products, which
take advantage of Experian’s depth of data resources, and
the easy-to-use, point-of-entry software QAS develops?
JHF: Look for more product development announcements from QAS in
the coming months, but I can share that, from our perspective, one
of the main benefits is the sheer volume of data held by Experian
Marketing Solutions. We are currently working on technology that
leverages some of the richness of the Experian data set.
RE: We have put together a Product Development Council, with members
from Experian Marketing Solutions, QAS, and our other key subsidiaries,
like CheetahMail and Simmons Marketing Research, to discuss ways
to make our InSource data file, which contains data on 215 million
Americans, more useful and relevant to businesses. Every one of
our acquisitions has been about taking the next logical step, of
connecting data sets to make them more valuable to our clients.
What about the merging of the two cultures?
RE: I am excited about our ability to leverage the different cultures
of the two organizations. The whole is truly larger than the sum
of the parts in this case.
I’d say that we at Experian are a little more oriented toward
process and research than QAS, which is an extremely entrepreneurial,
results-oriented culture.
JHF: There are huge synergies between the two groups. Experian
has a lot of experience in dealing with data and how it affects
our biggest vertical markets: mail-order and retail. We are already
benefiting enormously from that experience.
RE: And, in turn, we have benefited from working with QAS, who
help keep us thinking entrepreneurially. We have created a culture
that is better than what either one was alone.
