Showing posts with label analytics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label analytics. Show all posts

Thursday, July 1, 2010

I can see clearly now

Posted by Mark Brousseau

Recent advances in technology are raising the bar for payments analytics capabilities. Some of these technology enablers include: higher capacity and more affordable disk storage; database management systems with data partitioning; and evolving data warehouse capabilities. Leilani Doyle (ldoyle@usdataworks.com), product manager with US Dataworks (www.usdataworks.com) says these advances couldn't have come at a better time:

As a result of the recession, enterprises are under pressure to predict the internal performance of the organization more precisely than ever before. For organizations that do this well, the payoff includes lower costs, higher customer retention, increased responsiveness, a reduction in fraud, increased productivity and ultimately, increased profitability, explains David White of Aberdeen Group.

An Aberdeen Group benchmark report found that Best-in-Class companies used analytics solutions to improve their ability to detect risk by two and a half times, and that 76 percent of Best-in-Class organizations enjoyed a customer retention rate of 90 percent or better, thanks in part to analytics.

Drawn by these benefits, more organizations are evaluating analytics solutions, particularly for payments environments. Twenty-four percent of organizations plan to adopt analytics technologies within the next year, reports Aberdeen Group. "The fundamental drivers of adoption remain strong," says Dan Vesset, program vice president for IDC's Business Analytics Solutions Research service, adding that even during the recession, the business analytics software market continued to grow.

In payments, demands for information reporting and analysis have never been greater. Key decisions depend on the ability to accurately monitor, measure and predict operational needs and payment trends. Most organizations try to bridge legacy payment silos, only to find themselves left wanting -- despite a tremendous effort expended to integrate, report and analyze data across payment channels.

The Case for Analytics
Several trends are driving demand from payments processors for business analytics solutions:

• The need to predict the future. All operations managers, treasury executives and risk managers rely on historical data in order to properly plan for the future. The more timely and more complete the data these individuals have at their disposal, the better the predictive models can be. The same concept holds true for predicting consumer buying behaviors.

• Increasing complexity of payment types. New payment channels have emerged over the last few years, and we are certain to see the evolution of mobile payments during the next year or so. There's no question that consumers and businesses alike are rapidly changing the way they make payments. In the past, consolidating this data for analytical purposes was extremely difficult, if not impossible. Today's advanced analytics tools solve this problem.

• Fraud detection. When it comes to payments, fraudsters are becoming more sophisticated, and the economic downturn has made them more desperate than ever. Businesses need to protect their assets with superior fraud detection. A key element of any fraud detection program is the early and accurate identification of unusual patterns and behaviors. Today's advanced analytics tools give organizations the ability to analyze payments data across channels and produce actionable assessments that can prevent or stop fraudulent activity.

• Staff management. Using analytics to identify changes in peak processing windows enables organizations to better manage their staff, which have been stretched thin after the recession.

• Reduced cost. Consolidating data with an enterprise analytics solution enables organizations to decommission redundant systems, some of which are maintained only for their archived data; some large companies are sitting on old, out-of-production systems for this very reason.

The Bottom Line
Today, financial institutions, corporate billers, and government entities are challenged to manage images and data from multiple payments channels, and to provide a high-level of data protection, data accessibility, and data tracking and reporting for compliance. Adding to these challenges are ever-increasing demands for real-time analytics to improve corporate agility and customer responsiveness. Traditional siloed payment archives are too costly, too inefficient and too fragmented to be effective. The answer lies in emerging payments analytics solutions.

Using analytics solutions, organizations can finally get a clear and timely view of their operations.

What do you think?

Monday, October 26, 2009

Enterprises Continue to Invest in Social Media

Posted by Mark Brousseau

A second annual survey of companies sponsoring online communities shows signs of increasing maturation as enterprises continue to invest in social media tools and online communities.

According to the survey, conducted by Deloitte, Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research, 94 percent of the respondents indicated that they plan to maintain or increase investment in their communities, while only six percent plan to decrease investment.

However, while enterprises are effectively using these tools to engage with customers, partners and employees for brand discussions and idea generation, the survey also indicates that organizations continue to struggle with harnessing social media’s full potential.

The “2009 Tribalization of Business Survey” evaluates the perceived potential of online communities and identifies how enterprises believe they may better leverage them. The survey measured the responses of over 400 companies, including Fortune 100 organizations, which have created and maintain online communities today. The communities ranged from fewer than 100 members to more than one million members.

“Despite risks associated with participating in online communities, the internal costs of community formation and management, and the fact that we are in the midst of a profound recession, organizations’ continued and enhanced investment in online communities underscores the perceived potential for the value that they may provide to the enterprise,” said Ed Moran, director of product innovation, Deloitte Services LP. “Social media and communities are expected to continue to play a significant role in the way in which companies are interacting with employees, customers, partners and the larger business ecosystem, thereby redefining the very edge of the corporation.”

Of the companies surveyed, a majority agreed that increasing word-of-mouth (38 percent), customer loyalty (34 percent) and brand awareness (30 percent) continue to be the top business objectives of online communities, followed by idea generation (29 percent) and improved customer support quality (23 percent). However, in the majority of companies surveyed, marketing continues to be the primary driver of online communities, resulting in a significant gap between community goals and the organizations’ capability to fully leverage these communities on an enterprise wide basis.

Market Shows Signs of Maturation
Several data points indicate continued maturation of the enterprise’s use of communities and social media. For instance, this year’s survey pointed to an evolution in the way in which companies are tracking and engaging with both active and inactive members. While the number of active users and their level of participation have been considered the top measures of success for an online community, this year survey respondents are paying close attention to non-active users or “lurkers” – people who observe the community, but don’t participate in the discussion.

Thirty-two percent of respondents are capturing data on how these individuals derive value from the community.

Additionally, 20 percent of survey respondents have set up formal “ambassador” programs, which give outsiders preferential treatment in return for being more active in the community.

Thirty-nine percent of the survey respondents also indicated that more full-time people are being deployed to manage the communities.

“While we are seeing signs of maturation in this year's study, there are still plenty of companies who do not realize the power of communities, and others who have not yet figured out the proper approach for leveraging communities as part of their business,” said Francois Gossieaux, partner with Beeline Labs and a senior fellow with the Society of New Communications Research. “Businesses are truly become social again, and companies should look to leverage the collective wisdom of their employees, customers and partners in order to innovate faster, reduce costs, and bolster their bottom lines.”

Rethinking Community Success
According to the survey, the biggest obstacles to creating a successful community – getting people to join (24 percent), stay engaged (30 percent) and keep returning (21 percent) – can be easily remedied through partnering and new management practices. The study indicates that very few companies, however, are taking the steps necessary to overcome these challenges.

While 58 percent of respondents evaluated partnering with existing communities, complementary vendors or end users when developing their community, 55 percent of the companies that evaluated a partnership did not actually partner.

Furthermore, the survey also revealed significant gaps between community goals (such as generating word of mouth, customer loyalty and brand awareness) and how success is being measured. The top two analytics for measuring success are the number of active users (34 percent) and how often people post/comment (32 percent), indicating that participation is still considered to be the biggest measure of success. Potentially more useful analytics, however, such as increase in search engine rank and citations/links on other sites, are less often utilized, highlighting a mismatch between the desired outcome and how that outcome is measured.

“To realize the full benefit of social media and online communities, business leaders must move beyond viewing them as “bolt-ons” to their corporations,” added Moran. “Companies need to integrate the new information flows associated with the communities with those that already exist within their companies. New management strategies and practices will be critical, including redefining the scope and role of alliances as well as the overall boundary of corporations.”

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

BI Supports the Army

By Mark Brousseau

Faced with low customer satisfaction for its reports and financial data, and no common user interface across its systems, the Army Research Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) turned to business intelligence, Mark Sauvageau, chief, financial operations, Financial Management Office, RDECOM, said yesterday during a presentation at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2009.

As a result of implementing business intelligence, RDECOM has better aligned its resources and processes, he said during the presentation at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.

Today, all desktops at RDECOM have reporting capabilities (encompassing 100 senior leaders, 150 financial analysts and 400 engineers). The organization uses data analysis for a variety of financial tasks, Sauvageau told attendees, including funding applications, cost accounting, budgeting and presentations.

Using its business intelligence programs, RDECOM has been able streamline its information flow, helping it avoid $270,000 a year in costs, while increasing productivity 146 percent. RDECOM has also seen a dramatic increase in customer satisfaction with its reports and financial data. Moreover, business intelligence has created a foundation for RDECOM’s strategic decision-making, he added. “Our business intelligence efforts have enables our engineers and analysts to spend less time on non-core tasks and more time on activities that support our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Sauvageau concluded.

Based on this success, RDECOM plans to extend business intelligence to all of its 3,500 users.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The Case for Business Intelligence

By Mark Brousseau

Wondering about the cost justification for business intelligence initiatives? Brian Ng, field enablement leader in the business intelligence solutions group at HP (www.hp.com), told attendees at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2009 that business intelligence provides several key benefits:

… Enhanced decision making
… Improved insight
… Reduced risk
… Lower costs
… Improved efficiency

Ng noted that many companies already are using business intelligence to help monitor and measure their business and to make key decisions (e.g. driving supply chain management or CRM systems).

What do you think? Post your comment below.

Know Your Customer, Grow Your Business

By Mark Brousseau

The business intelligence that used to be confined to marketing is now spreading as organizations align themselves around a common vision, John Santaferraro, director, industry solutions, HP said during a presentation today at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2009 in Washington, D.C.

“Customers are so bombarded by messages that what worked to attract them seven or 10 years ago, no longer is effective,” Santaferraro told attendees. “How we are getting customers’ attention is very different. And it changes the way that we look at business intelligence, and the way that we look at customers. Historically, most business intelligence has been in marketing. But the strategies and product plans that companies put together must also leverage business intelligence. Companies need to figure out how to harness everything they know to differentiate themselves from the competition.”

The challenge, Santaferraro said, is that both customer data and customer business intelligence exist in silos at most companies. To solve this, a lot of companies are launching customer data integration projects that unify information across the boundaries of an organization. “They are looking at using unified business intelligence across all departments to drive performance,” Santaferraro said. “This is completely different from the way that most corporate systems are architected today.”

“This connected intelligence opens the door for new customer innovation. It also connects front-office decisions with back-office operations. And it connects a business to new opportunities,” Santaferraro said. Leveraging business intelligence in this way will have far greater impact on a company, he added.

What do you think? Post your comment below.

How BI Should Work

By Mark Brousseau

Kevin Quinn, vice president of product marketing at Information Builders (www.informationbuilders.com), says that there are three levels of business intelligence: strategic, analytical and operational.

The strategic level helps companies monitor performance and communicate strategy. The analytical level isolates information to identify the good and the bad and provide historical trends, as well as forecasts. And the operational level helps automate and accelerate business processes.

These three levels of business work in conjunction with one another to drive business improvements. The trouble is that most organizations implement them as completely separate initiatives, Quinn said today during a presentation at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2009 in Washington, D.C.

For instance, many organizations implement performance management and scorecards at the highest level of the organization, but never bring them down, Quinn said. In fact, Quinn cited a survey showing that most organizations have deployed business intelligence capabilities to fewer than 20 percent of their internal users. That’s a problem since 80 percent of the world’s data resides outside of the data warehouse, Quinn said. “This means that there is no direction at the middle levels of the company. People have to shoot blind and hope for the best,” he said. “Operations will never know if it is working on the right things if it isn’t getting direction from analytical business intelligence.”

“This isn’t how business intelligence should work,” Quinn said. “Companies are neglecting what they can do at the bottom levels of their organizations or the front lines, which is where they can get the highest return on investment. It’s only when you take action at the operational level that you get the largest benefits. Companies should have the three levels of business intelligence work together.”

What do you think? Post your comments below.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Business Intelligence 2.0

By Mark Brousseau

A new buzz in business intelligence (BI) is business intelligence 2.0. That’s according to Accenture. While traditional business intelligence and data warehousing are concerned with analyzing the past, BI 2.0 concentrates on the future. Put simply, it refers to drawing inferences from historical data, applying the resulting insights to events as they happen and then managing future events through predictive analysis, Accenture says.

Just a few years ago, it took weeks or even months to detect an unusual process, analyze the event, formulate and take the required actions. BI 2.0 provides these capabilities in real-time. BI 2.0 brings a burst of radical thinking and a fair number of promises that, when realized, will make a real difference to bottom lines and help companies move towards high performance levels. But what is really needed to embrace BI 2.0? Smart CIOs are examining their data management.

Accenture’s research has shown that 92 percent of CIOs widely include structured data in their information strategies and almost 60 percent see BI as a core component for competitive differentiation. These findings come as no surprise but disturbingly, traditional business intelligence is too often used in an undifferentiated way. Aggregated data from the past is often viewed outside of its context and compared with static key performance indicators. Knowledge workers receive standardized reports and then take time to interpret the data and make decisions.

Business intelligence 2.0 focuses on business events and how business processes and business users respond to them, Accenture says. For example, unusually high returns of a best-selling product would lead to the examination of many factors. Is that particular batch of product faulty, is there a pattern to the consumers who are returning this product, is there a problem with the packaging, or the sales staff, or even evidence of fraud? In this simplistic example, an "event" called "product return" triggers a series of responses that require access to information and should trigger intelligent decision-making, based on a variety of conditions.

The vast majority of applications and processes have limited ability to absorb changing business needs, are not explicitly defined and do not have comprehensive metadata management processes, Accenture notes. If we are to make BI 2.0 a reality, we first need to look at the assumptions and promises of BI 2.0 from a data management perspective.

How is your organization refining its use of business intelligence? Post your comments below.

Monday, November 5, 2007

From Transaction Systems To Analytics

By Mark Brousseau

In an article on trends in IT capabilities and advancements in healthcare finance that appears in this month’s issue of HFMA’s magazine, Deb Davis and Jim Adams, both of IBM Global Business Services, identified the move from transaction systems to analytics.

“As advanced clinical systems are implemented, the value of clinical information can be extended beyond the transaction level to be used for risk management, trend analysis, and analytics that include financial and clinical data,” Davis and Adams wrote.

The development of a health analytics roadmap can determine strategic priorities in the analysis and use of data with research, finance, and patient care, they conclude.

Sounds like another example of the convergence of payments and document processing to me. What do you think? E-mail me at m_brousseau@msn.com.