Datamyne, Part 1: Data Standardization and Product Code Attribution

As I have said many times, Trade Intelligence is composed of many facets: data, technologies, application and people.  It’s people that really boost the IQ.  Notwithstanding, on some level it starts and ends with the data.  If you’ve got bad or ugly data to start with… whatever you build ain’t gonna look pretty.  No decision will be well founded.

It is reported that Datamyne’s standardization process of the U.S. Customs data results in linking 85% of the manifest records (that are not suppressed or invisible) to U.S. consignees (importers).  Believe me, that’s no simple task.

As part of the deal Datamyne can filter out NVOCCs and logistics folks. There is nothing more irritating when you’re doing a search through Customs records, looking for importers of a particular product let’s say, than to have your results display 10 iterations of the same importer along with “junk” or fake consignees, which are obviously not importers.

Future iterations of their product promise to link expanded D&B company information to U.S. importers, further enhancing the value.  They believe they will be able to match about 60% of the non-suppressed records to the D&B database.  It’s all about “connecting the dots”!

U.S. Customs data is fetched daily via FTP.  Datamyne processes and makes a “raw” version (without standardization of names or product coding) available online within 72 hours.  They’re intending to compress that time down to a 24-hour turn-around very soon.  Their standardized, coded version is updated twice per month around three weeks in arrears.

More about data.  Datamyne also attributes a Harmonized Code product classification to over 80% of the manifest documents.  Although usually only to the two or four digit hierarchy, this is a fairly remarkable and difficult undertaking.  With the exception of PIERS, no other TI provider does it.  Although they’ve yet to fully exploit the many benefits of these linkages and the many profound synergies that can be created between statistical, and company data sources, they are clearly laying a firm foundation.

Although cloistered in separate silos, Datamyne maintains statistical data (updated monthly) on almost 50 countries within Europe, Asia and Latin America.

Furthermore, they maintain transactional manifest shipping data (similar to U.S. Customs data) on many Central and South American countries.  Unfortunately for Anglos, this data is only available in Spanish.  However, the availability and expertise with Latin American data remains one of their unique competitive strengths.  Datamyne’s origins, data center and most employees are rooted in Uruguay.

Datamyne has a slick “Drag and Drop” feature that allows users to chose which data elements they want to search on, display and export.