Data, Analytics and Decisioning Demystified at First Data’s 2007 Fall Forum
First Data clients from across the country gathered in Omaha recently to learn how they can leverage the data already at their disposal to help better serve their customers and increase their revenue. A slate of industry and First Data experts gave the audience valuable insights into both the broader state of data and analytics in the financial services industry as well as how they are being applied to specific business functions such as fraud management, marketing and customer service. Here’s a recap of some of the Fall Forum sessions.
How do companies compete – and win – with analytics?
Keynote speaker, Jeanne G. Harris, Executive Research Fellow and Director of Research at the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business, enlightened the audience with her discussion of how high-performance businesses are building competitive strategies around data-driven insights and generating impressive business results. According to Harris, who is also the co-author of the book Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning, analytics are changing the way people learn, make decisions and compete in every aspect of our lives – from how we predict weather to the way we solve crimes. And when it comes to the business world, Harris said high performers like Harrah’s, Netflix and Nextel have discovered the power of analytics to outthink and out-execute the competition.
Analytics in the credit card marketplace
Ted Iacobuzio of TowerGroup offered insight into the role that analytics play in today’s credit card marketplace. Iacobuzio discussed how outside changes have shifted the focus from acquiring new customers to managing existing ones. In order to remain competitive, he said, issuers need analytics to help understand the dynamics of the larger economy and how these forces are affecting their organizations. Iacobuzio also noted that leveraging data to make decisions has become the most effective way of designing the right product for the right customer and determining the best way to communicate with them.
Combining strengths
Trevor Rubel, Chief Strategy Officer for Intelligent Results, spoke about how combining the respective strengths of First Data and Intelligent Results translate into a competitive advantage for First Data clients. With the acquisition of Intelligent Results, analytics can be infused into all First Data applications and applied in a way that makes the most sense for individual organizations.
Delivering the power of analytics
Delving deeper into how analytics work, Danny Rosenthal, Director of Development for Intelligent Results, explained how analytics are used to provide deeper insights into customer behavior and yield more accurate predictions about their future behavior. In his presentation, Rosenthal highlighted a few of the many analytical techniques available and the criteria for selecting those most effective for your organization.
Applying it to your business
Through a series of breakout sessions, clients were presented with scenarios and examples illustrating specifically how data, analytics and decisioning can be leveraged in big and small ways to address real-world challenges and opportunities. The most popular sessions included…
- Simple & Quick: Actions you can take to help your business today!
- Marketing: Using actionable data to increase offer ROI
- Identify the bad guys by improving your knowledge of the good guys
- Act now, you’re missing opportunities!
Throughout the course of the Fall Forum, clients learned that there are many actions they can take to better understand their customers. Many are quick, inexpensive and offer easy-to-quantify results. Others are more complex and far-reaching, but could yield paradigm-shifting changes to your business to help you leapfrog the competition. Clients in attendance were offered practical approaches to determining how both levels can be used to help them build stronger and more profitable relationships with their customers.
