Centralized Customer Data Management with Low-Code

Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) provides access to data of over 225 million companies in over 200 countries worldwide.

In response to a historically manual data enrichment process that was hindering their customer experience, D&B chose Mendix’s application platform to power D&B Data Manager, a SaaS Master Data Management Solution.

The application was delivered in record time, and streamlines the process of enriching client data with D&B data. D&B Data Manager allows partners and customers to take control of all their master data management projects in one secure, cloud-based application.

Manual Work Hinders Customer Experience

Around the world, millions of companies of every size rely on the unsurpassed depth and quality of Dun & Bradstreet’s (“D&B”) proprietary databases to research prospects, assess customer creditworthiness, evaluate suppliers, and more.

Increasingly D&B clients had sought greater latitude to supplement the rich D&B information sources with their own internal data to achieve an even clearer, 360-degree view of the companies they do business with. Previously, that integration process required cumbersome manual interventions before the client could access a fully integrated system.

Clients would email their data to D&B, where specialists would manually cleanse and enhance the data before returning an integrated superset of data back to the client.

According to Jean-Marie Christophe, Leader – European Partnerships, that process wasn’t meeting the needs of clients, or D&B. “Today, our clients expect a more streamlined and automated process,” Christophe explained.

The sophisticated data conversions, enhancements and other functionality and usability that D&B required were unavailable in any commercial utility. Instead, the company envisioned developing its own SaaS-based Web application where clients could log in, upload their files, select conversion parameters, and receive their cleansed, D&B-enhanced data sets.

Streamlined Data Management

“This is the kind of streamlined process that our clients expect and deserve,” said Christophe. “This application would tie our clients more closely to our data and improve their satisfaction with our services.”

To build that application, Christophe and his team selected Mendix’s application platform due to its technical flexibility, collaborative environment, and unmatched speed of delivery.

Developers start with high-level requirements, share results immediately, get the app in the hands of key users quickly, and iterate for optimal results. “We had previously used Mendix and were impressed with the technology, the speed of development and their support for the agile methodology,” Christophe said.

Two D&B developers used Mendix to create the D&B Data Manager application in less than six months. “In addition to tremendously fast application development, Mendix provides an exceptionally high level of flexibility,” he said.

Today, clients across Europe – the initial region for deployment – can use D&B Data Manager from a secure Web browser to upload their proprietary data to D&B’s servers, where it gets automatically and immediately cleansed and enhanced through a series of processing routines.

Clients can upload their data sets – which typically include hundreds of thousands of records – as often as desired: daily, weekly, or monthly. When the integrated data is returned to the client, it’s ready to be added to their databases and systems where it drives their credit, marketing, and supplier applications and decisions.

Automation Improves CX

“As a global company, D&B is highly protective of all aspects of its brand – and that includes this application,” said Christophe. “We put the D&B Data Manager through rigorous testing to ensure it met our standards for performance, hosting, and support.”

D&B Data Manager helps the company forge closer relationships with customers by streamlining their access to D&B’s and simplifying the process of integrating it with client data and, thereby, deriving greater value from their D&B relationship.

“Our existing clients have been very happy with this new innovative application,” Christophe said. “It’s a dramatic improvement over our previous methods. And our new customers – well, this is the sort of process that they’d expect.”