Creating the best address record

The benefits behind discovering the real “where” for the supply chain industry revolve around accurate location and address data. In the real world, data comes from all sorts of data entities. It comes from customers, third parties, partners, and agents. Sometimes address information is entered incorrectly. And if an organization uses address data from around the world to deliver excellent customer experiences and make critical business decisions, that data’s accuracy is essential. 

All the benefits of “last mile” accuracy begin when someone enters address data into a system. Organizations in the supply chain industry frequently use address data across a range of systems and processes — from deliveries to planning to billing. 

Using quality and accurate address data is imperative when implementing location intelligence. However, there are big challenges that often impede organizations or firms when they rely on and implement address data.

The supply chain industry wants to attain a perfect data record in their data warehouse - the more accurate their data is, the more likely it is to yield better results for them in the future. 

According to Whatis, a Golden Record is a single, well-defined version of all the data entities in an organisational ecosystem. In this context, the Golden Record is sometimes called the “single version of the truth,” where “truth” indicates the main resource data users can refer to when they want to ensure that they have the correct 

version of a piece of information. 

The Golden Record includes all the data in every system of record across an organisation. 

When considering the value of address data, attaining a “single version of the truth” is essential, especially if logistics companies want to harness the power of new technology at every touch point — from simple to more complex overseas and international deliveries. 

Let’s look at the following example where two data records can be created for the same entity.  

There will always be someone somewhere, or some other type of data entity, keying in address data — which is where things sometimes start to go wrong. 

The front-end process of verified accurate data. 

A real benefit to validating address data as an entity is keying it in real time. At this capture point, front-end best practices dictate that the data being entered should be validated for accuracy, which should then be validated against a global portfolio of “best-in-class” address databases. 

The address we’re looking at here is in Sao Paulo, Brazil — an address that could be entered by a customer or an agent during dispatch. 

As the user or data entity types, a list of possible address matches or results appears. The more information the data entity types, the more likely it is that the address results will be accurate. IP address matching can also be used to further break down the addresses shown, making the choices even more intuitive for the user. 

The postcode is also being captured at this time, which allows the verification system to display already validated and accurate address matches. The user or data entity simply must select the address they want to use from the list that appears. 

During this data capture stage, the system can deliver an accurate address to the shipping company’s data warehouse where it can be processed. 

When address data is accepted and stored in a main data warehouse, it can be enhanced even further, which provides even more value. After address data is validated as it’s being captured, it will still be continuously updated in the future when it is enhanced against the latest available data via parsing, matching, formatting, and transliterating processes on the back end. 

A geocode is automatically generated during the data enhancement process to include additional and essential address information relevant to its geographical location. 

Geocoding an address entails converting its descriptive address into more precise geographical coordinates. Assume that three deliveries are supposed to be delivered to two neighbouring locations. It might seem like two of the three deliveries should be delivered back-to-back to the same locality to be more efficient at first. But an inefficient situation could arise during delivery when there is a greater distance between houses than previously thought, which isn’t revealed from mapping zip code data alone. 

While this may not be a huge concern in well-structured regions inside the U.S.A. and most of Europe, it is a major concern for deliveries made inside developing countries like China and India.  

This geocoding functionality provides longitude and latitude coordinates for more precise accuracy and can be used in many GIS-based applications. Reverse geocoding can also use longitude and latitude coordinates to create address data. 

Our example address in Brazil can be converted to a geocode as follows. 

The map view shows the delivery address clearly.

The back-end technology to process and deliver high-quality data. 

Many companies regularly process their address data in batches to ensure that any changes or amendments made to these records are as accurate as possible. The individuals whose job it is to enhance and maintain this data will want to use the following tool. 

When we run a verified address through the enhancement process, we can see the following results. 

As you can see from the example here, the address data is captured well and is validated as an accurate address. 

Everyone talks about data accuracy. But let’s take a closer look at what data accuracy means. 

Remember, we need to have a “single version of the truth” which is based on accurate address data from the very beginning. 

Data professionals like us use address verification codes (AVCs) to measure how accurate validated data is. 

Review the enhancement screen you just looked at again. Part of that screen shows the AVC, which tells a data analyst how well an address verification performed.

Failed deliveries cost the supply chain industry approximately $17 every time a parcel is returned. 

Apart from the simple fact that failed deliveries cause costs somewhere in the logistics chain of operations, there are other less obvious cost-related factors to consider. For instance, a business’s brand reputation and reputation with its customers are at stake when deliveries fail, yielding much greater costs. 

When discussing address data, in this guide we’ve tried to highlight the benefits of address verification and enhancement. Now we’ll use the 1:10:100 rule to illustrate costs associated with missing or inaccurate data. The 1:10:100 rule is a concept for quality management that was developed by G. Labovitz and Y. Chang. It’s used to quantify the hidden costs of poor quality.  

Here’s how it works.

The 1:10:100 rule refers to the hidden costs of waste associated with poor quality. It’s pretty basic, really: prevention is better than remediation. The cost of $1 to sort address data before it enters a system is money well spent. While remediation at that data’s halfway point could cost 10 times that, when simply using manual processing to sort and correct the data. 

And it could cost 100 times that original dollar when a delivery fails because of inaccurate address data. A failed delivery causes more costs: costs associated with redelivering the original delivery, interactions with customer service teams, and a negative perception of a brand which could lead to future losses in sales. 

Almost 30 percent of a delivery’s total cost is generated within its “last mile.” 

In the digital world, the customer is clearly in the driver’s seat. Customers can do things like customize and order a Tesla from the comfort of their own home with a few clicks of a button. 

Amazon has added next-day delivery and global shipping, which has increased customers’ expectations. With access to so much at our fingertips, you could say we are all a little spoiled. 

Consumers consistently expect this high level of service nowadays. They have become accustomed to tracking the progress of their goods and services being delivered in real time — whether it’s a Domino’s Pizza delivery or seeing how far away an Uber driver is. Tracking all of it has become the norm and is necessary to keeping customers satisfied and loyal. PARCEL media highlighted that 28 percent of total costs to move goods are generated during their last mile, when parcels of goods travel from the warehouse to their final destinations. 

But third-party logistics (3PL) entities have a huge opportunity to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their deliveries’ last mile when they have the right data and technology in place. They could also decrease their costs and increase customers’ satisfaction as a result. 

Doing all of this in the best way possible entails having the right technology, data, and geocodes. For any 3PL, having the right technology could be their holy grail because it will allow them to make deliveries faster and cheaper, while ensuring that they’re all accurate and trackable. 

Often, 3PLs will have issues with the accuracy of their data because of the variation of data that they receive from retailers and merchants, because each entity has different processes in place for capturing data. 

This is why having the right technology is essential; it will help logistics businesses overcome challenges like this. 

An additional layer of intelligence to any location. 

It’s easy to see the benefits of geocodes and reverse geocodes because they provide a further layer of intelligence to any location. They: 

There are several options for implementing this type of address verification technology.  

These options depend on each end-user’s requirements and infrastructure:  

On-premises  

Depending on an end-user’s existing set up, Loqate’s address verification engine can be set up as part of a larger solution. Other factors to consider range from regulatory concerns to security concerns to the factor of costs. If service is set up in this way, it can be purchased as a 12-month subscription or with multiple payments.  

Cloud  

The cloud option offers greater flexibility. Many users still have concerns with regulatory data issues and security, but Loqate’s engine performs well in different environments. Our cloud-based engine is hosted and accessed by a REST API. The benefits of this option include enhanced flexibility, no infrastructure costs, and a more agile per-transaction cost.  

Private cloud  

This option is a “compromise” of the other two options. It entails Loqate’s engine to be locally hosted in a private web server, enabling access via locally hosted web services. It can be purchased as a 12-month subscription or with multiple payments.