Transforming data

Adding value to business intelligence

We are all told that data is now king but the key question is how are you adding value to the data you share with your customers? How do you take raw numbers and shape them in a way that transforms data into actionable, valuable business intelligence? Ronny Reppe, CEO of Noria Software, lists five ways to add value to the information that is shared with clients and stakeholders

Gartner’s former head of research, Peter Sondergaard, once said the following about the importance of data analytics: “Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.”

In other words, there’s little point in stockpiling vast amounts of data if it cannot be used to drive your business forward.

In the insurance industry, data analytics is a value-adding process that enables better decision-making. Higher-quality information helps insurers provide a more exact price for expected claims, and (more importantly) can be leveraged to help prevent future claims.

Insurers can use data analytics to analyse historic claims, track the data flowing into the system through connected insurance (IoT), understand client risks, then provide customers with targeted advice on how to minimise or avoid future claims.

Providing data analytics to clients needn’t be a face-to-face service or manual task. Instead, insurers can add real value by providing clients with actionable information in the form of self-service dashboards that enable them to make better-quality decisions.

Let’s dive in. Here are five ways companies can add value to the data they share with their clients.

> MAKE IT SELF-SERVICE

A 2018 Deloitte paper on modern business intelligence spoke of the power of self-service:

“As self-service analytics technology continues to put more power and responsibility into the hands of the business user…organisations can save time, resources, and better achieve mission effectiveness by harnessing the power of data to become modern, data-driven, insight-driven agencies,” it stated.

“Organizations [can] take advantage of mass amounts of existing and new information in vastly different ways than were previously possible, allowing users to ask and find

answers to any question, with any data, at any time,” continued the paper.

The question that needs to be asked is: Can your customers find the answers they need on-demand, at any time, from anywhere, and with any device? When designing your digital customer journey and self-service portal or dashboard, ask yourself if there are any areas where customers will still be forced to pick up the phone and call your organisation to request key information.

> MAKE IT VISUAL

> (Push) Continuous real-time analytics. Alerts users or triggers notifica“Insurers can use data analytics to tion as events take place. Consider your customer’s needs analyse historic claims, track the data when designing their digital journey. Will they need analytics on-demand, flowing into the system through con- or will they benefit more from an alert/notification set-up? nected insurance (IoT), understand cli> PUT IT IN CONTEXT ent risks, then provide customers with Numbers are meaningless on their own. Data cannot be properly targeted advice on how to minimise or understood or acted upon if it is read in a vacuum. avoid future claims.’’ How can you, as an insurer, provide They say a picture tells a thousand your clients with context around the words. In a business environment Ronny Reppe, data you give them? This may involve where speed and efficiency are Noria Software providing information on relevant paramount, making data rapidly current events that are impacting their understandable through visualisation portfolio such as the COVID-19 crisis, is more important than ever. trade wars, or geopolitical risk.

An MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) study It may also involve the provision of benchmarks against published in 2014 (In the blink of an eye) found that the the rest of your client body or on a wider scale against human brain can process an image as fast as 13 milliseconds. global best-practice. We are wired for visual information. Some 90% of the The most valuable context to provide is to show how the information transmitted to the brain is visual, and humans data relates to what the organisation is trying to achieve. can process images 60,000 times faster than text. This requires a step backwards and discussion with the

Add value for your customers by building dashboards that customer as to why they need this data. represent key metrics visually using charts, graphs, A 2018 McKinsey report (Analytics translator: The new infographics and other visualisations. must-have role) urges all companies to hire an “analytics

Ensure they are customisable. Customers should be able to translator” to provide the bridge between data and the convert a pie chart to a bar graph with a single click, or swap business context. out a key dashboard metric without requiring IT But, I would argue that, as the gatekeepers of data assistance. improve the way business intelligence is made understand-

With well-designed visualisations, customers should be able and accessible, this fledgeling role should become able to find the information they need at a glance. But keep in unnecessary. mind that the graphic should be the tip of the iceberg. A a user should have easy access to the full data set if they need to dig > MAKE IT ACTIONABLE deeper. The best indicator of data value is how easily it can be turned into actionable steps. But this can be a significant > MAKE IT REAL-TIME challenge. Research carried out by Bryan Hopkins, VP When you’re driving at high speed along a busy highway, it’s Principal Analayst at Forrester, found that while 74% no good if your speedometer is showing you how fast you of business leaders want their organisations to be “data were travelling yesterday. For an organisation to be more driven”, only 29% say they are good at converting analytics responsive and agile in their decision-making, the into action. information that feeds those decisions must be 100% Truly actionable data will give your customers the ability real-time, not 24 hours old. to seize new opportunities, course-correct on mistakes that

Dashboards should therefore be integrated with a data have been made, drive process or performance improvesource that updates continuously with real-time information ments, and make higher-quality decisions. – not once per day, per week, or per month. Do your organisation’s data dashboards help make it

Real-time data can be provided through a “fetch” or “push” clear for decision-makers what actions need to be taken? scenario. Data can be made actionable by following the steps I’ve > (Fetch) On-demand real-time analytics. Only delivers outlined above: Making it accessible on-demand, making results when triggered by a user query. it visual, making it real-time, and putting it in context.