Learning The Value Of Information by Lars Nyberg (NAPSA)—Whatever your line of business, your company may benefit from a new “warehouse.” Companies now use an enterprise data warehouse to analyze all the available data they have and turn it into actionable infor- mation. These warehouses then can make the information readily available to employees. The technology can help companies push the decision-making process down the chain of command—from high level managers whotraditionally have access to such information, to the employees on the “front lines” of customerservice. It is all about aligning an organization’s technology investment to enable employees to Lars Nyberg makebetter, faster decisions. Such technology has become increasingly important in the ever-changing global marketplace. As commoditization is a challenge in most industries today, companies are having difficulty differentiating themselves from their competition. Even if you are not operating in a commoditized mar- ket, a fantastic product no longer guarantees a competitive advan- tage over the long term. Competitors can duplicate almost any product, and competing on price alone can lead businesses into a downward spiral. An enterprise data warehouse, however, allows companies to tailor communica- tion and build the relationship with individual customers—and that is a business advantage that nevergoes outofstyle. If, for example, a customer were to call a cellular company to complain about frequent lost connec- significant financial impact. Consider the cellular example. Cellular companies lose thousands of customers daily. In the telecommunications industry this is called customer churn. With the churn rate for the wireless seg- vice branches would want to take action and solve the problem. To take action, however, information is needed. The customer service representative would need to know how well the company served the customer in the past and what is the customer’s calling profile. Next, the representative would need to know the profitability of the customer and the potential lifetime value of the business relationship. In addition, what are the financial implications of any service remedies the representative may offer? Whenis the customer’s contract up for renewal and what are competitors offering? All in less than two even a small improvement in retaining profitable customers would mean millions of dollars to the bottom line. In our own experience, NCR consolidated dozens of locallybased systems into one Teradata enterprise data warehouse. The Teradata system helped us improve our business processes and financial performance. Better quality analysis based on one “version of the truth” allowed us to discover efficiencies, reducing our annual finance infrastructure costs by $600 million. We also tions, most company customer-ser- minutes. Typically, the information the customer service representative needs is held by several different departments—operations, sales, marketing, etc. The customerser- vice representative, however, needs to know the whole picture. He or she needs accessto all the available information about that customer in order to make the best decision—and make it quickly. An enterprise data warehouse is the technology foundation that makes this kind ofrealtime response possible. The right decision can have a ment at two percent per month, improved our asset management, resulting in a $100 million sustainable reduction in finished inventory—and, as many businesses have found, that’s the real value of information. e Mr. Nyberg is chairman and chief executive officer at NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR). NCR is the leading provider of Relationship Technology solutions, including the Teradata database and analytical applications, automated teller machines and store automation systems. The company is ranked number one worldwide in data warehouses above one terabyte in size, ATMs andstationary barcode scanners.
