Build risk-assessment confidence through D&B’s Material Change predictive analytics

Build risk-assessment confidence through D&B’s Material Change predictive analytics

   May 15, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Your lumber business just scored a large contract to supply materials to an expanding hardware store chain in California. You’re looking at ramping up production and hiring a score of new employees. But how can you be sure that your new star customer will remain on its current growth trajectory? Businesses are faced with similar decision-making challenges on a daily basis. Without the proper data tools, it is difficult to see beyond the immediate outlook and predict when a material-change event will occur. Fortunately, new analytical tools are arriving on the market to help companies more accurately assess the future risk or potential of a business partner.

For instance, D&B’s patent-pending new analytic capability, “Material Change,” enables customers to better identify whether a business is poised for expansion or headed for decline, reaching out 12 months, 18 months, and on into the future. This new tool is the most recent in D&B’s family of predictive analytic tools. The company has traditionally provided market-leading business scores, credit scores, and ratings. The predictive analytic tools build on the traditional scores and can help transform data into intelligence that also helps manage risk and identifies new opportunities. Predictive tools already available from D&B include Viability Rating, Total Loss Predictor, and Delinquency Predictor.

Material Change PredictorsMaterial Change builds on D&B’s existing predictive analytic capabilities by adding anticipatory signals, such as a company’s payment behavior and financial obligations, to provide a long-range view of the firm’s risk profile. Where D&B’s existing tools allow businesses to move forward on deals with prospects, suppliers, and customers, Material Change gives customers the confidence to make future plans based on the predicted stability of those commercial relationships.

Advanced analytics like Material Change are designed to help customers anticipate a partner’s behavior and insulate against surprise developments. For the lumber business looking at expansion, the insecurity of relying on a large contract relationship is mitigated and confident business decisions can be made. Taking on 20 new employees and adding a new production line won’t cause unnecessary worry that those operations may have to be shuttered a year or two down the line. Anne Law

Predictive analytic tools on the market are also helping companies target key prospects, identify most valuable customers, and leverage successful products and marketing campaigns, according to EMC Corp.’s Bill Schmarzo. Modeling and forecasting tools allow businesses to answer futuristic questions such as: “Who will be my top customer next year?” and “What new product will be the top seller?”

Predictive analytics allow businesses to recognize patterns and correlations between customer behavior, store traffic, promotional activities, geography, and other elements that drive risk or profitability. Examples of successful data crunching initiatives range from Netflix’s predicted success of blockbuster TV show House of Cards to the Carilion Clinic’s identification of critical-risk heart patients.

–D&B is currently testing the Material Change predictors to determine how the capability can best be ingested and used by customers.–

anticipatory analytics, D&B Material Change, Dun & Bradstreet, material changes, predictive analytics, risk management, Biz Trends, Buzzworthy, Customer Intelligence  

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How small businesses can gain actionable insights from big data

How small businesses can gain actionable insights from big data

   May 15, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Are these a sci-fi film’s dystopian vision of a future where Big Data has paralyzed life on Earth or simply the stuff of nightmares for small-business owners around the world?

The out-of-control growth of global data (40% year-over-year) — aka Big Data — has created an information blizzard through which it is hard for businesses to see the actionable insight. Data that is not relevant and actionable is just that — data. Small businesses must be able to make sense out of their existing data to answer the questions about customers and prospects that need to be answered. 

Nevertheless, according to a recent Nielsen poll, many small businesses are still hesitant to access and leverage big data. The responses from a poll of 2,000 US small businesses found that 41% think that conducting market research is too expensive, while 42% think that they don’t have time to conduct research. But the most shocking thing in the poll is that 35% reported that they have never even considered it.

Whatever the reasons for resistance — intimidation, lack of expertise, limited time and financial resources — small businesses must get on board. Winners and losers are being determined by what insights businesses are able to gain from their data. Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) chief data officer Paul Ballew cites a Forrester Research report saying that a scant 12% of companies use data-driven intelligence, resulting in substantial lost business opportunities.

According to a white paper, Generating Value from Big Data Analytics, from global IT membership organization ISACA, big data insights shed light on “customer needs and buying patterns, the reputation the company holds in the marketplace, and the emergence of new risks.” The risk of ignoring these insights is great, according to the organization, resulting in “the company being left behind as its competitors embrace the technique to leap ahead.”

Accessing big data is of course the easy part. The key is finding the right tools to help small businesses extract the insight from the information blizzard — tools that help them target the right customers, create growth, and grow revenue.

Ballew advocates D&B’s market-sensing predictive analytics suite, which unlocks the business insight from a small business’s data set to gain a competitive advantage, create a comprehensive view of customers, and allow for a more disciplined approach around testing and learning.

The big data storm is only getting stronger, but businesses that use tools to navigate through the tempest will prosper while those who remain snow-blind will find themselves frozen out of business opportunities.

actionable insights, Ballew, big data, credit risk, customers, D&B, data overload, discern, external data, global economic outlook, global economy, growth, insight, intelligence, predictive analytics, product development, risk, small business, tools

Category:Biz Trends, Buzzworthy, Customer Intelligence

Author : British editorial veteran Stuart Hampton has been covering oil and gas companies for Hoover's since the Neogene-Quaternary period. Well, actually, since the early 1990s. For the best overview of the oil industry and its history he recommends Daniel Yergin's "The Prize." 

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