1.18 Before April 1999, NS&I had limited information on its customers and their accounts. Each office held customer records for the products it serviced. These records were stored on different computer systems or as manual records and had inconsistent levels of detail and completeness of data.
1.19 SBS has constructed a data warehouse in line with the contract to enable NS&I to gain a better understanding of its customers. For each customer within the data warehouse SBS is providing NS&I with a single customer view. This is a unique record of each customer and all their NS&I product holdings as recorded on Thaler. Although details of some customers remain to be added, the data warehouse is proving to be a useful tool. NS&I has started to segment its customer base and to identify those most valuable to the business. This will enable it to target its customers more effectively, thus increasing its cost effectiveness and its ability to add value for the taxpayer.