Information Integration Is Not A One Time Process

Ravi Ranjan, Senior Manager - Enterprise Risk Services (Analytics), Deloitte, says information integration and data analytics is no longer optional, but a necessity. In conversation with Biztech2.com he recommends it to be a continuous process to be successful.

How can information integration help enterprises in managing risks and improving customer satisfaction?

In today’s highly competitive market, information integration and data analytics is no longer optional, but is a necessity. Companies are aggressively focusing in areas of data management, business intelligence, performance management and advance analytics to predict customers’ likely behaviour and design the right marketing strategy to improve customer lifetime value and manage risk.

Risk officers are always in dire need of an integrated and automated risk barometer to sense the pulse of the business through the data generated from business processes across all the business units, products and portfolios. Information integration helps understand the different factors that impact enterprise level risk and performance. It also teaches them how to manage this risk.

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What role can information integration play in improving data security and maintaining data integrity?

Information integration allows financial crimes prevention team to look for critical data with the help of exploratory data analytics and predictive science solutions. These systems use the data generated through the business processes to effectively monitor and proactively identify suspicious customers, employees, transactions and trades within the organisation.

At the same time, the audit team can use information integration and analytics to identify process laps to errors and misuse of system to fraud. This comprehensive data analysis will not only help them check the current state but also establish preventive measures by identifying the patterns and trends within the organisation.

In a nutshell, information integration is one formula that helps different teams in the enterprise to better manage their data and also secure it at the same time.

How can enterprises effectively utilise the unstructured data residing within?

The Internet boom and reversal of information flow has increased concerns not only of marketing managers but also of risk management departments across the industry. Companies are cognisant of this and are investing time and budget to use unstructured data from the Internet to identify business opportunities, to perform sentiment analysis and to manage the reputation risk.

Also, with the rise of sensitive data and information on the Intranet, companies are focusing on storing and analysing unstructured data such as emails. Companies should also start taking unstructured data from social media and blogs sites seriously because it is an easy medium through which it can know what customers are saying about its products and services. Today, many people look for an existing customers’ experience about a product before buying it. Hence, using the power of social media can help in managing reputation risk.

What are the challenges involved when undertaking an information integration project, and how can these be overcome?

The key challenges faced are:

• Many companies go for quick win rather than approaching it as a strategy initiative

• Integrating data from various IT systems and Data Warehouse into an analytical data mart

• Data availability and quality is still an area of concern

• Data analytics using internal data is new for many companies. Developing these capabilities and using in business decisions is a challenge in itself

• Treatment of unstructured data to mine useful information

• Data privacy and protection

Companies are becoming aware of the opportunities which information integration and analytics offer and they have started investing in IT system, analytics tool and building such capabilities. To create a data intelligent organisation, information integration and analytics has to be viewed as a journey rather than one time solution.