High-quality data gives you advantages in unexpected places

When I had a job as a courier during my student days, I never ran a red light. But I always ran an amber one. That worked perfectly. The only thing is, you never know beforehand what it will be useful for. According to the old saying, to measure is to know. But what you discover often turns out to be a surprise. And so, you don't always know exactly why you're taking measurements. The information you uncover can be anything, which means you can do anything with it. Perhaps it's strange to realize, but you don't always need a concrete goal to take relevant measurements.

Once upon a time, there was a particularly large express carrier. A really big one. And every morning, they received 30,000 packages at an airport, delivered by their own plane. These packages came from abroad, and because the carrier suspected that their couriers could drive more efficiently, they wanted a navigation and route optimization solution. This ensures that packages arrive at recipients sooner. They'll be so happy that they'll become fans of this carrier. So, if all shipment data were loaded into an optimization tool, routes would be optimally planned, stops would be sequenced correctly, and drivers could get to customers extra quickly.

Address data wasn't always accurate

Because the shipments came from abroad, and they have a different address format there. Or shipments are sent to an incorrect recipient address. Think of courier deliveries to a PO box. Incorrect postcodes causing shipments to go off-route and incur a day's delay. The capital 'I' being mistaken for an extra '1' in the house number. Things like that. Since 20% of these packages went to private individuals who had already paid for them, these incorrect addresses resulted in quite a few calls to customer service every day. All of them a day after the expected delivery, and therefore all 'emotionally charged'. Read angry.So how do you solve this? With route planning, as the client wanted? No solution, because garbage in = garbage out. From the Netherlands, dictate to all offices and countries how an address should be structured? This is a large international company, so limited effect. Enforce strict entry in the booking tool? Not all other countries work with an online booking tool. That would cost business.

Addresses in order

The problem is experienced here, so you solve it here. With a smart 'address cleansing' solution, you can correct almost all addresses in the Netherlands before the plane even arrives. Can you now drive the routes faster? Yes, that's very easy. Because you have the addresses in order. But also because you deliver 'first time right' to a larger portion of recipients. And that you have happy customers, and your couriers don't have to puzzle so much anymore. And that they know what time they'll be home. And your CEO can demonstrate that you can easily save costs while increasing customer satisfaction. A utopia? No, what happens is that you look at your data even when you don't yet know where the problem lies. Along the way, you find the problem, solve it, and simultaneously address several other issues. Problems you might not even have known you had. World domination is around the corner!! And if you've never done this exercise before, I'm sure the profit will be worth it.