Case Study
International Customer Loyalty Programmes plc
Industry: Marketing
Annual Revenue: £8 Million
Worldwide Customers—Managing Profitable Relationships
ICLP is the world's leading specialist in loyalty marketing programs, helping organizations maximize profits by building more effective customer relationships. ICLP delivers world-class marketing solutions through its three core competencies-consulting, creative, and client services.
Established in 1987, ICLP employs more than 500 staff worldwide with offices in London, Dallas, Dubai, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney. Clients include many world-class companies such as Apple, DHL, Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts, Star Alliance, Virgin Atlantic, and VISA.
When ICLP was a small company, it was looking for a database solution that was simple to use and provided tangible financial savings. It found one in Ingres, which is the foundation of all its customer loyalty systems.
Ingres-Reliable, Scalable, Cost-Effective, and Easy-to-Use
"We rely on Ingres, which is at the heart of our mission-critical systems and those of our customers," says Shaf Rahman, ICLP's Group Technical Director. "We had reviewed all the big brand database names and done due diligence. But when it came to cost, Ingres delivered everything we needed and it was significantly more cost-effective. As we've grown and our customer base has expanded, we've continued to use Ingres. The technology is impressive and it still delivers excellent value for the money."
Ingres also scales easily, from small, discrete systems to multi-national, multi-million customer applications, says Rahman. The database can support all of ICLP's business applications-from a few thousand contacts in one of the business-to-business systems to the Priority Pass airport lounge card system, which has 1.5 million customers and processes 3.5 million vouchers every year.
Total cost of ownership and ease-of-use are key issues for ICLP and its customers. For example, when ICLP develops an application for a customer, the difference in cost between using Ingres or another product as the database engine can be as much as £80,000. "Ingres is significantly more cost effective than other databases," says Rahman. "As we migrate our applications to run on the open source version of Ingres, the cost savings will be even more significant."
Ingres's technology also enables ICLP's customers to benefit from complex database applications without having to invest in expensive database skills. For example, ICLP developed "an Ingres-based frequent flyer system for an operator in the Philippines," says Rahman. "Once we'd installed the system, the customer didn't need any expertise to run it. In fact, they didn't have to employ a database expert. Other products require a lot of in-house skills."
For ICLP, using the Ingres database has also meant that it is able to protect its investment in skills and knowledge. With the advent of browser-based front-end IT applications, ICLP was able to port all of its applications to more engaging and easy-to-use interfaces and still retain all the original back-end data and relational processes.
Going forward, ICLP will use Ingres technology to open up new business opportunities.
Business Value with Ingres
“Because Ingres is simple to install, we can now have a new Ingres database application up and running in less than an hour. Had we been using any other database for our business applications, we would have had to employ three database administrators instead of one—that's a cost saving of more than £100,000 a year.”
Shaf Rahman
Group Technical Director
ICLP
For more information about ICLP visit: http://www.iclployalty.com