New Tools Enable Cost-Effective Business Intelligence Consolidation

More than ever, data is the lifeblood of any business, but managing it can often be as difficult as herding cats.

Most enterprises – especially larger ones – have data distributed across numerous different systems, often in geographically disparate areas. These systems typically have varying user interfaces, which add to the confusion. Throw in uneven growth throughout the system and you may end up with something akin to “Where’s Waldo?” when it comes to your data.

But what can you do?

New business intelligence extensions to tools such as Microsoft Office combined with analytical, identity rationalization and segmentation tools from platforms – such as our own FreedomPay Commerce Platform – allow businesses to unify data and identities across virtually all of their systems, no matter how disparate.

Rationalizing consumer data, then separating customers based upon spending is important because it allows for more effective targeting, whether it’s with incentives or offers designed to increase spending, loyalty or both.

Sure, business intelligence and analytics already can focus on key performance indicators, but a connected analytics enterprise goes well beyond that. That’s because it can rationalize customer identities and segment consumers according to their buying patterns.

And the value of that is simple: This data will allow the enterprise to make more money, which is the ultimate name of the game.

Let’s use a bank as an example.

Banks tend to have a ton of information about what and how their customers buy, as well as their personal financial management. In addition, they have data about how customers use service portals.

By using the FreedomPay Commerce Platform, the data can be analyzed in numerous ways, particularly in shared loyalty programs with merchants and retailers. From there, the bank can send customers relevant offers, such as discounts to favorite restaurants, loyalty points and even suggestions on places to buy items. These will be especially valuable as the use of mobile devices increases.

Given that the platform is both high performance and secure from the cloud to any device, downsides don’t exist, resulting in a transaction superhighway to greater profitability, not to mention efficiency.