Integration of Unstructured Data Increases Performance of Best-in-Class Companies

94% of Best-in-Class Companies Report Greater Than 10% Improvement in Response to Customer Demands Through the Integration of Unstructured Data


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - August 2, 2007) - Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), revealed today that best-in-class companies are seeing significant performance improvements through the integration of unstructured data with traditional information for performing business analysis. While "response to customer demands" is the #1 area of improvement, 69% of best-in-class companies report a greater than 10% improvement in employee productivity (measured as time spent searching for knowledge objects).

According to research presented in a new report, "Data Management 2.0: Making Sense of Unstructured Data," best-in-class companies are seeing many significant performance improvements through the use of unstructured data in their business operations:

     1.  74% have improved customer cross-sell / up-sell, while industry
         average companies report only half and laggards only a third of
         this mark.

     2.  63% state that their view of the customer has improved by greater
         than 10%, more than double the combined improvement reported by
         average and laggards.

     3.  63% report that enterprise-wide use of BI has improved by greater
         than 10%. This occurs at a rate that is three times greater than
         industry average and laggard companies combined.

"Integrating unstructured information via text analytics enables analysis of new untapped information (considered by many to represent over 85% of an organization's data) including: web logs, word documents, emails, customer surveys and feedback, field service notes and more," stated David Hatch, research director at Aberdeen. "The ability to transform unstructured data into relational data, and to open up information silos through enterprise search technology, enables greater performance in proactive management of customer relations. It also increases the amount and quality of actionable information available for decision making. This improves the ROI realized with enterprise use of BI applications."

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Business Objects, Kapow Technologies, and QL2 Software. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=4114

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.

© 2007 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
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Boston, Massachusetts  02110-3112
Telephone: (617) 723-7890
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Contact Information: Media Contact: David Hatch Research Director 617-854-5329 david.hatch@aberdeen.com