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This Movember, participants can change the face of men’s health directly from their mobile device. Experian Marketing Services and The Movember Foundation, the global charity raising funds and awareness for men’s health, are kicking off a new mobile program for Movember 2015 participants. The mobile messaging program will give participants the option to receive reminders and updates from The Movember Foundation directly from their mobile device. Powered by the Experian Marketing Suite, The Foundation will be able to reward, encourage and inform participants with more immediacy and relevance across channels, including email and mobile. “Mobile messaging is a natural extension of our mission to start more conversations around men’s health and inspire people to get active,” said Mark Hedstrom, U.S. Country Director of the Movember Foundation. "In partnership with Experian, we’re mobilizing men’s health awareness and giving participants a more personal and immediate way to understand how their contributions are helping us to tackle some of the biggest health issues faced by men.” The announcement of The Foundation’s new mobile messaging program comes just days before the kickoff of the annual Movember campaign. Since 2003, The Movember Foundation has raised more than $650 million and funded more than 1,000 world-class programs in 21 countries. Every Movember, the hairiest month of the year, The Foundation challenges men to grow a moustache and women to support a moustache or to increase their activity and commit to MOVE, the foundation’s 30-day fitness challenge, all to help raise funds and awareness for men’s health. Men and women who choose to participate in Movember and then subscribe to the mobile messaging program can stay connected to the men’s health movement through special rewards, event information and innovative fundraising ideas delivered straight to their mobile device. “Mobile messaging done right isn’t just promotional. It’s an opportunity to drive meaningful, two-way communications between a brand and its audience, particularly for brands that can add value in a specific location or moment, such as Movember,” said Matt Seeley, group president, Experian Marketing Services. “Movember participants are more than customers; they are brand ambassadors for the men’s health movement and want to receive information and ideas when they need it most. We’re thrilled to contribute our expertise to help The Movember Foundation take those communications to the next level to make Movember a more personal and rewarding experience for those involved.” To sign up for the Movember campaign or for more information about mobile messaging, go to Movember.com to Grow, Give or MOVE.    

It was only a few months ago when millennials officially surpassed baby boomers to become the largest living generation. Since millennials are so numerous, it stands to reason, that they could also become the most prevalent population of small business owners in the U.S. As a matter of fact, everyday there are hundreds of new start-ups being created by this younger demographic. Clearly, the millennial generation is gravitating toward entrepreneurship, but what do we really know about this segment of the population? While we know they are deeply rooted in technology, what industries are they most likely to enter? Where are millennials more apt to establish their companies? How do they handle credit? In order to put a face to the average millennial business owner, Experian recently conducted an analysis exploring the demographic and its credit characteristics. Interestingly, we found correlations between their education level and the industries in which they were most likely to start a business. Interestingly, the analysis showed millennial business owners had the highest percentage of those without a high school diploma and subsequently established companies in industries that typically do not require a college degree. For example, the top three industries for millennials include business services, building cleaning and maintenance and general contractors. From a geographic perspective, we found more than 68 percent of millennials establish businesses primarily in three states, including California, Texas and Florida. While the number may seem a bit high, it makes sense considering one of the states is a hub for technology, and the other two do not have state income tax. We also found millennial business owners have the lowest commercial* and consumer credit scores at 32 and 628, respectively. However, despite their low scores, millennials show to be the most credit active generation. More than 17 percent of millennials have opened a commercial account within past 24 months. While they have a brief credit profile, which can impact their credit score, millennials seem to understand the importance of building credit by opening new accounts. By putting a face to the name, so to speak, creditors and suppliers will have a better understanding of what drives the millennial business owner. These insights will enable them to better market to this growing segment of entrepreneurs, as well as position them to service these young business owners and uncover their own growth opportunities. Millennials are the future, and the more we understand how to help them succeed, the better off our economy and society will be. *Based on a scale of 1 to 100 (with 100 being least risky); predicts the likelihood of severe delinquency (more than 91 days past due) within the next 12 months  

The appetite and need for data within businesses is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. Organizations are viewing data as a strategic asset and using analytical insights for everything from key business decisions, to the customer experience and more. However, the methods for managing first-party data and ensuring it’s accuracy have not kept pace with the growing data demand. The majority of businesses today are still relying on siloed, departmental strategies for data management that have little data governance or consistency in terms of people, processes, and technology. This very clear gap between data usage and data trust has been realized. Organizations are starting to put better structures in place and assign owners to data. In some businesses, especially in highly regulated industries, a chief data officer (CDO) position has been created. The CDO is viewed as a trusted advisory and a custodian of data. That individual is responsible for evangelizing data usage within the business and ensuring that individuals buy-in to information management practices. But a C-level focus on data has only occurred in a select number of organizations. For the thousands of other organizations who have data and need to improve data trust, who do they turn to today? In many instances, we are finding that the CIO is taking ownership of data management in a bigger way. In fact, according to a recent Experian Data Quality study of 250 CIOs from large organizations, 52 percent stated they have become increasingly responsible for data management in the last 12 months. The main responsibilities for the CIO around data management are: Improving the bottom line through lowering the cost of compliance Providing platforms and technologies to support analytics Measuring and managing data value and risk These executives are adding data management to an already busy work-load. Most CIOs report working longer hours and increased personal stress levels in the last year. However, they are seeing increases in their budgets, allowing them to hire additional help and invest in new technology. While the CIO is perfectly capable of handling the weight of data management with the right team around them in place, there are a few pitfalls that have occurred in the past that need to be avoided when modernizing any data management strategy. Data management isn’t just about technology There needs to be a large investment in people and processes to make sure there is organizational buy-in around data quality. Whenever there are policy changes that employees do not like, they will inevitably find a work around. With data management it is no different. Data owners need to evangelize data and make people want to maintain and use quality information. Data should not just be controlled and manipulated by IT While a central data stakeholder should provide consistent data governance and management across the organization, they should also an empowerment of departments and individual users. A large problem with data today is it is difficult to access. Sometimes departments will have to make requests with IT in order to have reports generated for analytics and wait weeks while their request becomes out of date. Today, data owners need to think about business users. How can they make data governed, accurate and accessible while allowing individual departments to manipulate data themselves for specific purposes? Don’t think about big data, think about insight We all have talked a lot about big data over the last few years. But, at the end of the day it is just data. It doesn’t matter how much data we have, we ultimately need to be able to access and manipulate that data for analytical purposes. When you are looking at technology, don’t just think about Hadoop clusters and data lakes; think about what you need to build models and access analytics in real-time. One of the biggest gaps right now for organizations is central ownership of data. A few organizations are looking to answer need by creating a CDO role. However, before this role becomes main stream, much of the work will fall to an already overloaded CIO. They need to maximize their time around data management and ensure that information is fit-for-purpose. Consider the pitfalls above and be sure to hire a great team of data professionals. To learn more about how data is affecting CIOs, download our research report, The role of the CIO in data management.