An interesting read from Reuters last week has me thinking about how critical it is for businesses to take advantage of customer data. James Kelleher reported that Caterpillar, an Illinois-based manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, “believes its distributors are missing out on somewhere between $9 billion and $18 billion in easy-to-capture revenue each year because they are…not tapping into the wealth of real-time customer data now at their fingertips.” In an even more intriguing move, Caterpillar is giving dealers until the end of the year to come up with a plan on how to capture those lost leads or their dealership agreements will be terminated.
Similar to its competitors, Caterpillar has “integrated all kinds of diagnostic technology into its machines that throws off a torrent of real-time information about the health of the products. The data helps owners track their equipment, optimize its utilization and manage fuel and maintenance costs.” If exploited by dealers, the information could help better anticipate customer problems, schedule maintenance and better manage their equipment fleets.
Making the most of your customer data is something we take very seriously here at Progress DataDirect. In fact, if you can’t turn your data into actionable insights then what’s the point of collecting it altogether? We offer high performing data connectivity solutions that can analyze and correlate data across many data streams, which is integral to critical business decision-making. This gives business users accurate, up-to-date information right at their fingertips. With this data in hand, companies – both big and small – can take advantage of customer data, as well as increase sales and revenue. I encourage everyone to take Caterpillar’s lead and begin exploring customer data!