The Evening Standard
Written by Julia Vowler
June 12, 2001
The leaders of the pack; Business Solutions: You can bank on good returns from investment in business intelligence
THE American bank robber who, when asked why he kept robbing banks, answered, "That's where they keep the money," had a point. Knowing where the money is - where it is to be made and lost - is vital to commercial organizations.
They want to know where money flows to and from, the most profitable products, customers and suppliers. With business intelligence (BI) software, companies can dig deep into their data to answer those all-important questions that affect their bottom line.
One of the biggest problems banks face is that all too often they are "banking blind" - their computer systems are set up around financial product lines, such as current accounts, mortgages or savings, not customers. Trying to put together the picture of which products any individual customer buys is difficult. But cross-selling is the name of the game in financial services.
BI can build new revenue streams from corporate customers as well as consumers. Zurich Insurance, a $ 6 billion company, uses Business Object's WebIntelligence to give its corporate clients instant information over the insurer's RiskIntelligence extranet about their cover, exposure and claims, so that they can control losses and reduce claim costs.
Previously, when a client insured by Zurich wanted this detail, it had to wait for the monthly printout or CD, by which time it was out of date and claims were up to 45 days old.
Now, clients can use WebIntelligence to download more than 90 kinds of reports, from size of loss to type of injury. This lets the clients risk managers spot problems before they become a trend, and take action. One company spotted that back injuries at a particular factory were high, so it put in more forklift trucks and sent staff on lifting training.
RiskIntelligence, says Zurich, is the first customer-service extranet in the insurance industry, and has proved so popular with corporate clients that Zurich is rolling it out globally. It reckons it has helped to attract and retain 5% of all new customers, and by a combination of growing customers and revenues, as well as saving on printouts and CDs, the insurer is expecting a 250% return on investment over three years from the extranet.
"This application has allowed us to amaze our customers," says Frank Colletti, director of e-business at Zurich.
Not all the benefits of BI come from improving customer care like Zurich, or discovering commercially valuable information like the Woolwich or Argos - some applications can be used to integrate different computer systems, a task that bedevils many an IT department and causes grief and irritation to business users.
Disclaimer
Please note that this does not represent an endorsement of the writer's investment views or recommendations.
