Closing the loop: Experian's recent takeover of QAS has numerous implications for the address management arena--potentially unleashing a host of fresh solutions on the market. But, while speedier clean-up rates would be welcome news for the industry, are bureaux prepared to part with their carefully crafted solutions?

Precision Marketing, October, 2004 by David Reed

ADDRESS MANAGEMENT MAY HAVE always seemed like a niche operation only of interest to back-room boffins. But the acquisition of QAS by Experian for 106m [pounds sterling] this month (PM last week) shows that it is also big business. And the takeover could also signal changes in the way name and address files are maintained, cleaned and deduplicated.

Until now, the market has been polarised. On one side, PAF-based systems have become routinely used at the point of data capture. These commercial packages have been integrated into customer management systems, but are also available for back-office batch processing.

On the other side is the bureau based service, combining data matching for deduplication with matching against external reference files. The...