Margins and Paddings Update

For those of you who did not attend Experian’s Vision Conference this week, you may have missed an opportunity to learn how to drive profitable growth by leveraging the PowerCurve software to make accurate, analytics-based decisions quickly, efficiently and repeatedly to acquire, manage and grow your customer relationships. However, it’s not too late for you to catch up. The first two PowerCurve software products you need to know about — PowerCurve Strategy Management and PowerCurve Customer Management — are available today. And offer some of the most advanced decision analytics capabilities in the market today. Here's a brief overview of each product: PowerCurve Strategy Management — enables organizations to quickly and easily develop and deliver customer acquisition, portfolio and debt management decisions. It does this by giving business users the ability to easily design, test, execute and continuously improve decision strategies. The software makes it almost effortless for users to harness the power of data and transform it, using advanced analytics, into knowledge of the potential revenue and risk associated with each and every customer interaction. PowerCurve Customer Management — allows businesses to create highly profitable customer relationships by optimizing cross-sell and up-sell offers, improving loyalty and managing risk. The software accomplishes this by creating a comprehensive view of each customer relationship, across an organization’s business and product lines, to more accurately quantify each customer’s potential lifetime value and drive actions to develop and nurture it. To learn more about PowerCurve, go to www.experian.com/powercurve. Also, make sure you attend Experian Vision next year, so you don’t miss these growth opportunities going forward.

Maintaining cash flow and ensuring prompt payments are challenges that all businesses face. Large businesses, however, usually have enough built up capital to weather the ebbs and flows of timely payments, but for a small business, delinquent payments can mean the difference between being open tomorrow or having to shut their doors forever. Earlier this week, Experian launched BusinessIQ Express, a new online tool designed to help small businesses improve cash flow by helping them make more informed decisions about their business relationships. The new online tool does this in three ways: Evaluate – BusinessIQ Express members can evaluate prospects, customers, suppliers and partners on their likelihood to pay or deliver on time. Monitor – members can easily monitor their business relationships with alerts and notifications of key changes, allowing them to take appropriate account actions and maintain beneficial relationships. Collect – The tool offers small-business members unique options that may have never before been easily accessible to them to help collect on outstanding debts and avoid future losses.

On March 26th, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its highly anticipated final reports on consumer privacy, entitled “Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change." In their final report, the Commission applauded industry’s efforts towards strengthening industry self-regulations—including the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising—but called on industry to do more to protect consumer privacy. To achieve this goal, the FTC recommended that industry follow a privacy framework based upon three commonly accepted privacy principles: Privacy by Design Simplified Consumer Choice Greater Transparency In the report, the FTC states the proposed framework is not intended to serve as a model for future law enforcement or regulatory actions, but rather a guide to strengthen industry self regulation. The new FTC report—coupled with the White House’s February report—will likely bring greater attention from policymakers as they continue to debate the issue of online privacy.  In particular, the report will most certainly bring Congressional hearings to review the recommendations of the FTC.