Smarter, Faster, More Profitable

20 Organizations That Get It

The first rule for any intelligent enterprise is to continually shape and reshape business processes and performance based on the information at hand - whether deriving from customers, partners, constituents, or directly from operational systems themselves. Big or small, community-based or multinational, and profit or nonprofit, organizations facing the grinding pressure for efficiency are embracing this goal like never before.

Here are just a few examples of organizations, spanning multiple vertical areas, that we have seen bring their information assets into the core of their operations. (Doubtless, you know of many others.) More than anything else, we want to illustrate the growing popularity of business intelligence strategies across a spectrum of operations, as well as their diversity.

Amazon.com

Arthur C. Clarke famously opined that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." These words could well have been uttered about Amazon.com, which was among the first e-tailers to intensively use closed-loop analytics - comprising homegrown systems as well as commercial systems such as E.piphany and Oracle9i - to create shopping experiences of an unparalleled "personal" nature. The company has retreated somewhat from its obsessive customer centricity in the name of profitability, but there is still no better example of intensive customer intelligence and closed-loop processes in action.

AmerenUE

AmerenUE, a Midwestern energy provider, is using neural net-based technology to reduce detrimental sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions at its 2,400-megawatt, coal-fired Labadie facility by monitoring and adjusting more than 500 air and fuel variables in a manner that optimizes combustion. In 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ranked the Labadie plant second lowest nationwide for NOx emissions.

AT&T

AT&T's Growth Markets Division uses what it calls an "Attack Database," first built on SQL Server 7.0 and now migrated to SQL Server 2000, to take advantage of that platform's new analytic and processing capabilities. The database provides field sales personnel with access to vast amounts of internal and external data to quickly identify and target opportunities across the multibillion-dollar business telecommunications market.

British Petroleum PLC

Nearly 6,000 users in BP offices worldwide can access an enterprise BI system through the company intranet to analyze refinery sales data from legacy data warehouses and fiscal data from BP's accounting system. BP is expanding the system to provide extranet access to customers and suppliers and to integrate data from the ERP systems of recently acquired oil companies.

Capital One

Capital One has successfully combined its IT and business goals with its famous Information Based Strategy (IBS) that not only involves gathering information from its 33 million customers but also using it effectively. IBS comprises three steps: creating a new product or promotion and testing it, gathering and analyzing the test's results, and finally, using the test results to perform "microsegmentation" that serves as the basis of new consumer products.

Dell Computer Corp.

Dell is one of the original intelligent enterprises. Thanks to pioneering efforts in supply chain visibility and just-in-time manufacturing, Dell has grown faster than competitors in every product, customer, and geographic segment. In 2001, while other computer OEMs suffered from inventory write-offs, Dell decreased its inventory to a record low of five days. Dell also draws customers to its Web channel with superior self-service capabilities, thereby pleasing customers while simultaneously opening the door to high-quality customer data inflow.

Eastman Chemical Co.

Eastman has been among manufacturing's e-business trailblazers. And its e-business projects serve as inlets for richer, more up-to-date data flowing into its BI apparatus, as well as being outlets for quality, updated information that attracts users to them. The company sponsors e-business ventures such as ShipChem.com, a logistics provider for the chemical industry. Eastman has also been creating system-to-system connections with customers and suppliers, including a system for collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment, at an aggressive rate.

eBay Inc.

By collecting billions of customer "touches" and integrating them into a data model representing the behavior of more than 22 million registered users, eBay is able to improve customers' buying experiences, measure marketing success, better target customer groups, and manage vast volumes of transactional and clickstream data. This self-service BI system known as Cosmos lets employees and partners access up-to-the-minute reports.

FedEx Corp.

FedEx's new International Strategic Information System (ISIS), based on Information Builders Inc.'s WebFocus query tool, extends BI applications across the company's supply chain to 75 FedEx Global Service Participants (GSPs) in 150 countries. GSPs use country-specific ISIS data in sales, marketing, operations, and financial reports.

Harrah's Entertainment Inc.

Harrah's has pioneered a new era in casino management with its data warehouse application. By offering incentives to customers who use an identifier card, Harrah's collects extensive information about its patrons' activities, enabling it to offer relevant, welcomed deals to those patrons. The program helps Harrah's increase the value it derives from customers by analyzing hundreds of customer attributes to derive information, inferences, and predictions about those customers.

Honeywell International

Among many other strategic information-based projects and ventures throughout the company, Honeywell has created a system for its Airline and Avionics Products organization called eFactory. This system is designed to eliminate defects and improve data quality from the plant floor and across the supply chain. Access to eFactory's realtime, relevant data is securely available to employees, customers, and suppliers. Automated test equipment heads off defects. Defects that do turn up can be correlated with their origin, whether they arise from a supplier, production, or customers.