Sagent, a provider of real-time e-business intelligence solutions, has announced that Polk, a global company delivering information solutions and marketing data to the auto industry, is using Sagent's information applications to strengthen its analytic, consultative solutions.

As a result of this alliance, auto dealers will now be able to more easily and rapidly find car and truck buyers, capturing a larger share of future auto purchases, according to Dave Zaccagnini, vice president, solutions & services, Polk North America. In addition, Sagent's technology will help dealers meet consumer buying, financing and maintenance needs; better understand local market trends; and increase dealership profitability, according to Zaccagnini.

"Sagent's expertise in real-time data quality, enhancement and analysis applications will help Polk develop new and replacement solutions for our end customers -- the dealers," Zaccagnini said. "Sagent's database independence will enable us to migrate from mainframe systems to open systems and solutions. Ultimately, this will promote cost efficiencies, increase the accuracy of our data, broaden our range of data applications, and provide a wider set of options to meet dealers' needs."

Polk recently implemented Sagent's data quality and enhancement applications at General Motors Isuzu, Commercial Truck, LLC, to standardize customer and prospect addresses and provide better customer and prospect database record matching. General Motors Isuzu is now able to combine the best mailing-address data with the most appropriate target contact information, increasing its direct mail response rates and improving customer service.

"By combining Polk's analytic solution with Sagent's data quality application, we have been able to identify database record numbers matches with high probability scores," said Howard Ildvad, operating manager of market research and database management, General Motors Isuzu, Commercial Truck, LLC. "Sagent offers improvements in quality and accuracy in matching components on Polk's current products. This approach gives us greater flexibility when matching records with contact names, and allows us to add other match criteria when needed."

About The Polk Company

Polk has served the automotive industry for nearly 80 years and is the longest standing curator of automobile records in the United States. Founded in 1870 in Detroit, Polk launched its motor vehicle statistical operations in 1922, when the first car registration reports were published. It now provides automotive intelligence information solutions to nearly every segment of the motor vehicle industry as an analytical consultant and statistician, as a provider of database-marketing services, as a supplier of vehicle histories, and as a data enabler for geographic information systems. Based in Southfield, Mich., Polk is a privately held global firm, currently operating in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

About Sagent

Sagent powers more than 1,300 customer-driven organizations worldwide with an open, scalable analytic solution that addresses the development, production and ongoing management of a company's business data. Sagent allows businesses to collect and analyze customer and operational data from existing systems and to incorporate the most current geographic, business-to-business and demographic information in real time via the Web to create precise one-to-one marketing campaigns, identify profitable sales opportunities, and improve operational efficiencies.

Sagent is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. More information about Sagent and its products and services is available at http://www.sagent.com.