What are some of the most pressing problems financial services face in answering business questions with actionable insights?
The first, without question, is the need for speed. Leaders need the ability to analyze data from a host of sources in time with an executive request. Otherwise, complaints echo throughout the finance function of many organizations. And working with real-time data is the unicorn business analysts are often chasing.
Moving toward speed begins with the connection of all data sources into one unified platform. It also is continuously updated with the inputs of business users. However, data integration is often easier said than done, especially when the existing technology’s architecture includes a variety of rigid and archaic systems.
Traditional data and analytics platforms become slower and more expensive with time and the fantastic growth of data. Processing, managing, and cleaning more data costs more money. Today, operational reporting takes days or weeks for IT teams to cobble data together through lengthy ETL processes. As a result, the cumulative costs in valuable resources and delay to insights can be significant.
Beyond speed, finance teams are looking for technology that provides easy and intuitive interfaces to explore data with end-to-end self-service features to empower every business user.
And as data needs become more diverse, so will the inputs that inform strategy. Financial decision-makers require the ability to run simulations with real-time data that can be quickly updated and refreshed.
Incorta commissioned Forrester Consulting to evaluate the Total Economic Impact (TEI) of its Direct Data Platform on a corporation composed of retail, financial, and technology organizations, which calculated the expected benefits of its implementation. The study included a North American financial services company with $6.8 billion in yearly revenue.
The organization’s senior vice president of risk data analytics summarized three key results of following the implementation of the Incorta Direct Data Platform™:
1) A Unified View of Data from All Sources
“Incorta allows us to do everything within the same platform where previously we needed three or four different tools. Now we just do everything once.”
2) Speed in Iterations and Ad Hoc Analysis
“When the volume is small, for example, less than 10 million records, traditional BI tools can still handle those requests in a timely manner. However, when you have hundreds of millions of records using the traditional processes and tools would take weeks before we could start analyzing the data to view this process and building this process. But with Incorta, you’re talking about you’re shrinking that into minutes, into hours now.”
3) Democratization of Data
“People play more intelligently with the data now than ever before. There is more time available now to do inquisitive analytics where you get to explore what-if scenarios, trending, and anomaly detection.”
The financial executive estimates that its analysts are saving at least 50% of the time previously spent on waiting for reports and manipulating data. Forrester estimates astounding potential financial returns in analyst productivity alone.
