How to Use Pervasive Business Intelligence to Transform Your Business

5. Real-time fraud detection

In tough economic times, all corporations should look at fraud because that loss comes right off of the bottom line: profit. The best way to stop fraud is not the next day but while it's happening. It's tough to get the money back from a con artist a week after the crime, even if you can find them.

Innovative retailers are using pervasive BI right on their cash registers to detect fake receipts or probable fraudulent behaviors. The minimum wage retail associate doesn't need to make tough decisions; the ADW tells them, "Yes, this is a valid receipt" or "Pass this to the supervisor immediately." The best way to save money is to never lose it.

6. Automating manual processes

One way of driving out costs in any business process is to automate some of the process, reducing the need for human labor. With an ADW, coupled with embedded process rules, some tasks that previously required complex human decisions can be automated. For banks, this can mean automating the granting of credit—even mortgage loans—through their Website instead of the more lengthy, labor-based process of consumers filling out paper forms, then mailing them to committees and so on. Insurers can automate the quoting of personalized prices on the Web, limiting their dependence on the actuarial staff.

Similarly, an insurer can automate the processing of claims with rules, data mining and BI embedded in processing steps. In all of these cases, the majority of routine situations are automated with an ADW and business rules, but a small percentage of loans, prices or claims are still assigned to people when the decision appears risky.

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