New Research Report Reveals Roadmap for Retail Business Intelligence

Best-in-Class Companies Blaze the Trail for Improved Performance


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - February 6, 2008) - Aberdeen, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), surveyed over 200 retail companies during December 2007 to determine the critical Business Intelligence (BI) strategies, capabilities, and technology enablers that Best-in-Class companies (the respondent companies experiencing top performance vs. Industry Average and Laggard companies) are employing to improve performance. The findings reveal Best-in-Class retailers are almost two times as likely as Industry Average and are 14 times as likely as Laggards to have increased their gross margin over the past year due to their ability to derive actionable insights from their use of business intelligence.

The top pressure motivating all respondents, including Best-in-Class, to focus on business intelligence is the need to respond more rapidly to customer demand. Additionally, the top challenge that 49% of survey respondents encounter is a lack of clean data for analysis. In order to overcome these obstacles, Best-in-Class companies are:

--  Twice as likely as all others to have implemented data cleansing tools
--  Over 2.2 times as likely as Laggards to obtain real-time updates
--  Over 1.5 times as likely as Laggards to use scorecards to measure
    performance
    

With reliable real-time information at their fingertips, Best-in-Class retail companies are able to sense changes in customer demand more quickly and improve their customer intelligence. Their ability to utilize business intelligence is reflected in their bottom line performance, as Best-in-Class retail companies with scorecard capabilities are 2.8 times more likely to have increased their GMROI than all other respondents.

"Business intelligence is the top technology retailers will be focusing on in 2008," said Jeanette Keene, Retail Analyst, Aberdeen. "Retailers have realized they can utilize BI as a tool to support their customer centricity initiatives and their bottom line performance."

"The retail industry is experiencing some unique competitive challenges involving rapidly growing data volumes and the need to provide more end-users with relevant business information," said David Hatch, Research Director, Aberdeen Group. "The emphasis on solving data access, integration and quality issues is therefore not surprising as retailers struggle to harness the power of customer data within a growing on-line world."

In order to achieve Best-in-Class performance, retailers need to make their data a priority. As Aberdeen research found, the ability for a retailer to leverage their data effectively differentiates the Best-in-Class from Laggards. With all the tools in place, retailers will be able to measure and track their performance as well as conduct analysis using 'one version of the truth' to derive actionable insights for continued improvements.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: IBM, Panoratio, and PCMS. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4586.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

© 2008 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
260 Franklin Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02110-3112
Telephone: (617) 723-7890
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com

Contact Information: Media Contact: Aberdeen Harte-Hanks Jeanette Keene (617) 854-5253 jeanette.keene@aberdeen.com David Hatch (617) 854-5239 david.hatch@aberdeen.com

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