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September 17, 2003

12 That Get It

Taking the pulse of BI leadership, we highlight a dozen companies meeting success in BI implementation — and achieving business goals to become smarter, faster, and more profitable

by David Stodder

Continued from Page 1

Continental Airlines

The last few years have been a bumpy ride in the airline and transportation industries, challenging companies to keep their eyes on the ball — especially for Continental Airlines, which had the added distraction of pulling itself out of bankruptcy. Or perhaps it was extra motivation: The company's fortunes are clearly rising.

Behind this success story is an award-winning enterprise data warehouse that runs on Teradata (a division of NCR) database systems. The warehouse can offer granular views, including per customer, and uses automated data transformation to deliver data that's real-time fresh. The company is also an innovative user of networked-attached storage technology from Network Appliance Inc., which has brought efficiency and high availability to its Oracle data management and related data warehousing efforts.

eBay Inc.

As it turns out, the "e" in eBay means "everything." In the face of recent dot-com implosions and general recessionary blues, eBay has enjoyed continued growth. It could be that tough times only increase eBay's opportunities as more businesses use the company's marketplace to buy and sell ... well, everything.

The news may be good, but challenges remain. First, eBay must stay on top of varied customer preferences and behavior so that it can ensure loyalty. Second, the company can't let growth turn into chaos; strategic decision-making must scale. To make it work, eBay rests on a strong BI foundation that features products from a number of providers, but notably Informatica and MicroStrategy. The company's innovation ripples throughout the BI industry.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, government agencies responsible for fighting terrorism have become familiar with "asymmetry," which in IT terms is expressed by a tidal wave of unstructured data culled from a maddening variety of sources. The FBI, responding to criticism of its IT failures and problems with data integration, is in the midst of a major IT overhaul. Much is riding on the FBI's IT success.

BI, data mining, and data warehousing are right at the heart of the FBI's Trilogy network project. Software provider ClearForest Corp. won a major coup when the FBI chose its products to handle analysis and categorization of its massive document repository. Data marts generated by ClearForest technology will be critical to sharing information. From the director on down, the FBI now "gets it" when it comes to strategic intelligence.

Fireman's Fund Insurance

Monsters do live in the closet. Predictive modeling and data mining are just the latest sophisticated tools that insurance providers are employing to master information — and thereby win in a world where bad things happen. Unfortunately, one of those evils is insurance fraud, which costs insurers dearly.

Fireman's Fund has long been a leader in maximizing data resources for BI. The company makes smart use of SAS Enterprise Miner, Fraud Detection, text mining, and other solutions to zero in on potential cases of fraud. Intelligence gained in this and other initiatives benefit enterprise business objectives and keep a profitable Fireman's fund among the leaders in the insurance industry.

Hilton Hotels Corp.

Beginning in 1997, Hilton Hotels embarked on a Balanced Scorecard methodology, making it a trailblazer in BPM. Frustrated by initial efforts to use static spreadsheet reports, the company chose CorVu Corp.'s analytic application, CorStrategy. The two decided to work together to produce a broader solution that would address more aspects of hospitality operations.

The company credits the system for vastly improving both customer satisfaction and operating profit margins. A key challenge that Hilton overcame was to produce a system that was "hospitable," that is, easy to use for a wide range of executives and managers. Users are clearly enjoying their stay.