Analysis
CRM - ONLINE/OFFLINE
WhatdoesCRMmeanto yourbusiness?
Customer RelationshipManagement (CRM) software is re-shaping the online gaming space and its influence in land-based operations and the interaction between off- and online customer relations, will greatly impact both sectors
Scan the Internet and you’ll find a host of articles surrounding Yu Chung Lee, CEO and co-founder of Unica. Mr. Lee was one of the members of the MIT group recently portrayed in the film ‘21’ card-counting his way to fortune and latterly fame. Today, thankfully, Mr. Lee no longer plays professionally, investing his skills instead in the specialist software company Unica. However, it would be fair to say that while Mr. Lee’s credentials in the gaming industry might have been classed as ‘dubious’ in the past, he has gained an undeniably deep knowledge of how gaming works.
Speaking to Robin Martin, regional vice president of Northern Europe for Unica, he explained that Mr. Lee's passion and knowledge is one of the reasons why Unica has such a close affinity with gaming. However, when Mr. Lee turned his back on professional gambling, he choose to invest those skills in another passion - marketing. “Unica focuses completely upon marketing, both offline and online,” describes Mr. Martin. “At the simplest level, Unica provides organisations with a marketing brain, enabling them to take customer activity (in-store, point of sale, online, call centres - any channel) and use that information, both historically and in real-time, to help them deliver the most appropriate action or offer. From a gaming perspective, that could be in the form of targeted promotions, bonus points, player rewards, complementaries etc.”
Unica is already working with several very large organisations in the non- gaming field, including: HBOS, Capital
RobinMartin is regional vice president of
Northern Europe for
Unica. Robin has been withUnica in this
role since June 2008 and he is responsible for software and
services revenues forUnica into
Northern Europe. Previously,Mr.
Martinworked in a series of senior
managerial positions includingmost
recently North East leader forMRO
Software Speciality for IBMTivoli
Software andUK
managing director forMROSoftware. Mr.Martin has over
20years experience in Software&
Services sales in the Enterprise&
Applicationmarket sectors.
“I don’t think it’s such a challenge anymore,” describes Mr. Martin of companies’ understanding of the benefits of CRM. “We understand their business, the language and terminology and they in turn understand the benefits of effective CRM in the running of their operations. We deliver what it is they are trying to achieve by analysing and responding to the data as it manifests itself, offline or online. There are obviously different skill sets, different challenges, but we are very used to dealing with both sides of the house. Clearly land-based businesses have to make the choice as to where they are heading, but it’s a decision that’s not going to go away.”
THEHOUSETHATCRMBUILT Software organisations in the US have, over the last 20 years, been building and improving upon a broad CRM solutions set, addressing the different requirements of marketing professionals. Much of the work, however, has been conducted in vertical sectors, but in the last few years there’s been a significant shift from offline to online industries, especially in the
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One, Vodafone, Boots etc. Each uses Unica's marketing software in different ways but with the same end goal, to manage their customer relationship in the most effective way. Harrahs Entertainment and Casinos Austria International have also understood the need to utilise Unica’s CRM tools in the online gaming environment, while online gaming operators including PartyGaming, PKR and Full Tilt, to name but a few, have fully grasped the revenue generating potential of CRM.
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