The NEC Group manages some of the UK's best known event and entertainment venues in the UK, including the National Exhibition Centre, the LG Arena, the NIA and the ICC Birmingham. It also operates The Ticket Factory, a national ticketing agency launched in 2007 out of the NEC's own box office, and Amadeus, a catering business that provides catering solutions at all of the NEC Group venues as well as other high-profile venues and events throughout the UK.

In late 2007, the NEC Group was looking for a powerful data warehousing solution to optimise commercial value from the various sources of information it owns. This would provide an effective solution for optimising revenues from current operations and driving customer communications. Moreover, it would allow the NEC Group to use this knowledge as a service to third-party organisations such as event organisers, sponsors and relevant blue chip companies.

After a tender process, Royal Mail, in partnership with its provider TwentyCI, was chosen to deliver a solution, which met the NEC requirements, while providing a flexible and integrated platform for the future. The key benefits are to increase revenue, reduce costs, increase operational effectiveness and improve the customer experience.

The Data Warehouse Solution has been influential in all aspects of the NEC Group's decision making, particularly ticket sales. Adi Clark, head of insight & CRM at the NEC Group, says, "Our personalised emails sell 30% more tickets than the non-personalised approach. We've up-sold thousands of pounds worth of hospitality packages to carefully targeted customers. And we've used the results from many pieces of analysis to validate to organisers why our venues are the right locations for their events." It has helped improve the customer experience, too.

"We've seen sizable improvements in email engagement (open rates, click rates, unsubscribe rates) as well as actual ticket purchases. At a time when the leisure pound is being squeezed, it's more important than ever that our marketing is effective," says Adi. "The beauty of the solution we have in place is that it's simple to test new ideas and measure the outcomes." The database is also integral to the NEC Group's events operations.