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January 1, 2002

The Dozen 2002

Unica Corp.

Lincoln, Mass.

In this new century, "marketing" feels like a quaint term for what is an increasingly sophisticated, enterprisewide effort to bring buyers and sellers into a mutually satisfying relationship. Through the good times, the giants of retail, telecommunications, financial services, and the dot-com upstarts engaged in a ceaseless arms race. They deployed customer databases, BI, CRM, data mining, Web analytics, and whatever else to gain a competitive edge. In the late 1990s, marketing emerged as the magnetic force of "intelligent" software, drawing in the brightest minds to tackle problems such as segmentation, churn, and response modeling. Visionary consultants, such as Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, convinced executives that the endgame should be a one-to-one relationship with customers: only then could the battle for customer retention truly be won.

Needless to say, the heady times have passed; ROI is the name of the game. That, however, suits Unica just fine. As a leader in analytic CRM and marketing automation solutions, Unica's purpose is to help companies achieve not only greater revenue with more effective marketing and cross-selling but also ROI in the form of more efficient customer interactions. Led by CEO Yuchun Lee, Unica offers Affinium Suite, the heart of which is a set of data mining algorithms focused primarily on what the company sees as the key function of intelligent marketing: prediction.

ROI EQUALS GOOD CUSTOMERS

Whereas BI, OLAP, and data warehousing help marketing analysts evaluate, through transaction history, what customers have done, Unica employs a range of data mining methods to develop predictive models that sharpen analysts' understanding of what customers will do. Affinium automates the modeling process, which is critical if marketers are to keep pace with fast-moving business objectives and the "ubiquitous testing" mode of many large, cross-channel marketing efforts. Unica's Universal Dynamic Interconnect (UDI) architecture provides an integration layer that allows companies to work with many types of data, while insulating the modeling process from disruptive changes in data sources. Affinium doesn't create a persistent data store of its own, relieving administrators of yet another data source to manage.

Analytic CRM is giving marketing functions the substance they need to fulfill the role many organizations are preparing for them: that is, as the hub of enterprise customer interaction management. Marketing is rising up the corporate ladder. Increasingly, a "c-level" executive — the chief marketing officer (CMO), reporting to the CEO — leads the way. However, tighter times mean fewer resources. CMOs must marshall them to deliver ROI in Internet time. It wouldn't take a wild prediction to foresee that Unica will make the cut.

MAJOR MOVES IN 2001

· Releases Affinium 2, with capabilities for advanced segmentation and analysis; previewed "Gemini" release, with XML integration and workflow features

· Introduces Affinium Interconnect Modules for integrating Unica's suite with operational CRM and transactional systems