Information Builders Extends the Value of Business Intelligence to Improve Customers' Online Experiences

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Jan 23, 2012) - Information Builders, an independent leader in business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced that its customers are increasingly improving their customers' satisfaction and loyalty by making valuable BI data available externally. Using the Information Builders WebFOCUS BI platform, these organizations are increasing the value of their data as they deploy it to improve the online experience for customers and partners.

Gartner estimates that reporting and analysis will be an expected component of most customer and partner relationships by 2013.¹ To gain a competitive advantage from this trend, IT leaders will increasingly reevaluate their BI strategies to ensure they provide a rich analytical online experience. WebFOCUS provides users with the ability to view data in interactive dashboards and drill down into specific categories as needed, enabling organizations to give customers the ability to interact with data without requiring significant changes to their IT infrastructure.

"Today's marketplace is too competitive for organizations to be complacent about customer relationships," said Gerald Cohen, president and CEO of Information Builders. "To build and retain business, companies must be able to share information outside their enterprise walls. They need to give customers access to relevant data online to boost customer satisfaction, reduce costs, improve perception, deter fraud, and even reduce paper and other waste. A rich analytic online experience helps customers do everything, from tracking shipments to predicting crime. We believe this is the next frontier in the BI industry."
Information Builders has hundreds of customers who are putting data directly into the hands of end users. Here are just a few:

• The Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) used WebFOCUS to create a web portal for automating two resource-intensive administrative tasks: the collection and reporting of crime data and the tracking of police pursuits. The site allows more than 2,000 police agencies statewide to enter crime statistics and it receives more than 10,000 hits a day. By providing officers and citizens access to crime data in real time, the community is able to better monitor crime. Prior to the implementation of this reporting system, information submitted by local police agencies was not available to the public until PSP published its Annual Uniform Crime Report. Now citizens can go to the reporting area of the website and view the data as soon as it is submitted. In addition, police department personnel and private citizens can also use the portal to create their own queries to access specific crime information by police department, county, or statewide. The system retains five years of crime statistics online and allows citizens to create comprehensive queries and receive the results immediately.
  
  
• Varolii, a provider of customer interaction solutions, utilized WebFOCUS to create a flexible, ad hoc reporting environment for its customers through the Varolii Interact Portal. These customers rely on Varolii's software to interact with consumers via voice, email, text messages and smartphone applications for a variety of purposes including bill collection, update on order status, managing medication programs or alerting people to a crisis. With millions of interactions delivered on a daily basis, Varolii worked with Information Builders to develop a comprehensive dashboard to gain deeper, real-time insights into their customer interactions performance and business operations. The company is also taking advantage of WebFOCUS Mobile, enabling its customers to analyze business critical information on the go.
  
  
• DealerTrack, a leading provider of software and services for the automotive industry, needed a solution to help dealers be successful in the competitive car sales market by identifying the best clients, recognizing up-sell opportunities, and running their back office operations as efficiently as possible. To that end, DealerTrack worked with Information Builders to develop intuitive, external-facing data dashboards, providing end users with the ability to analyze this information, run both pre-determined and customized reports on the data, and develop a more holistic view of their respective dealerships. With WebFOCUS, DealerTrack's DMS (Dealer Management System) reporting environment is customized to the individual user's permissions in the company's dealer management software so that each user only has access to the reports and dashboards relevant to their job title and authorization.
  
  
• Walsworth, a yearbook publisher with roughly 3,700 schools as customers, has learned that rapid turnaround time is the key to keeping its customers happy. By creating a WebFOCUS-based reporting portal that gives clients quick and easy access to information, the company is accelerating its processes. All client information, including the status of printing jobs, page submissions, proofs, and deadlines (which determine pricing), are now available electronically. Students can monitor page submissions, view items that need attention, and review color-coded proofs. The new external dashboard improves customer loyalty by giving schools the unique ability to track progress in real time and also helps the company publish each school's yearbook more efficiently.
  
  

About Information Builders
Information Builders provides software and services that bring smarter decision-making and streamlined processes to leading organizations in business, government, and education worldwide. The company's software is installed in tens of thousands of locations, servicing millions of users. Its WebFOCUS business intelligence (BI) platform delivers massively scalable information applications, analytics, and customer-facing portals to the new generation of information users to deliver game-changing business results. Its iWay Software integration platform allows enterprises to leverage all of their information resources to streamline internal and business-to-business processes while escalating the overall accessibility and integrity of information regardless of environmental complexity. Headquartered in New York City with 60 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,350 people and has established significant industry partnerships. Visit Information Builders at informationbuilders.com. For ongoing news, go to informationbuilders.com/new or follow Information Builders at @infobldrs.

¹ Schlegel, Kurt. "Make Customer-Facing BI Part of Your Business Model," Gartner Inc., Gartner IT Symposium, August 2011.