How to Use Pervasive Business Intelligence to Transform Your Business

9. Consumer self-service portals

Consumer self-service can improve customer satisfaction while lowering call center demand. Via the Web or even the call center Interactive Voice Response (IVR) unit, customers can easily access data about insurance claims (for example, "Did you send my disability check?" or "Do you have all the medical information you need to process my claim?"), or about their package's shipment status ("Where's my package?" or "Where's my box of raw materials?").

10. Supplier and partner portals

Real-time data shared with upstream suppliers, agents and partners can not only improve relationships but it can drive the partner to higher efficiencies and better support. A simple real-time dashboard with detailed data drill-down can help manufacturing partners know faster which of their products are selling, where goods are in the supply chain and what their on-time or incomplete shipments "score" is.

Shippers can track goods delivery, responding to delays sooner. Armed with this knowledge, the partner can enhance their deliveries, manage inventories and production, and focus their employees on significantly better performance.

David Schrader is a Director of Strategy and Marketing at Teradata Corporation. He joined Teradata (formerly a division of NCR Corporation) in 1991. David held various positions in Engineering - Advanced Development until 1998 when he moved into Marketing. David has published widely in the areas of customer management, and presents talks worldwide on how companies can get a competitive edge from using technology. David holds a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Purdue University. He can be reached at dave.schrader@teradata.com.

Dan Graham is a Senior Marketing Director at Teradata Corporation. He began his computing career as a field engineer and systems programmer with UNIVAC. In the 1980s, Dan was assistant vice president of database administration at California Federal Savings and Loan. Dan joined Teradata as its senior marketing product manager of the DBC/1012 parallel database computer. Dan speaks frequently at international conferences on the topics of data warehousing, parallel processing and real-time business intelligence. He can be reached at dan.graham@teradata.com.