Monthly Archives: April 2018

Last week I attend the Utility Analytics Summit in Irvine, CA, which was sponsored by Southern California Edison. I’ve been to a lot of data conferences in my day, (let’s just say this was not my first rodeo) however, it was my first foray into the world of utilities. What I noticed right away was that data-related challenges run rampant regardless of the industry. The analysts, data scientists, and engineers that I met at the summit were all struggling with similar issues that organizations in finance and government have been challenged with for years.

Data lineage charts the full life cycle of data: the path from its creation through consumption, and everything that happens along the way. For organizations interested in achieving strong data management programs, data lineage is a key component. It provides a more granular view of your data, allowing you to gain insights from the ways in which data is manipulated and transformed from collection to application.

As part of the data revolution, organizations are trying to better manage and manipulate their information. They need to build a trusted data resource that they can use to generate revenue, gain a competitive advantage, and better serve their customer base.

But who is responsible for managing and manipulating that data? Who should champion that resource within the business to make sure it is used properly?

Experian had the privilege of being recognized as the corporate honoree at the Spirit of JA Celebration last night. The Spirit of JA is the annual celebration, auction, and awards ceremony for Junior Achievement of Northern New England. Junior Achievement (JA) is a non-profit organization that has 120 chapters in the United States and runs youth programs worldwide. Its mission is “to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in the global economy. Using hands-on experiences, JA helps to prepare young people for the real world by teaching skills in financial literacy, workforce readiness and entrepreneurship.” The local chapter, which was started in 1945, serves the young people of Northern New England by partnering with businesses in the community and training individual volunteers to provide hands-on lessons to students in grades K-12.

If you ask senior leaders of your company if they consider data to be an asset, chances are that they’re going to say yes. If you ask them how confident they are in the accuracy of that data however, the answers quickly start to vary. 

It’s not uncommon for challenges that are considered “just the way it is” to be truly simple fixes if you attack them from a data quality standpoint. Doing a cleanse of your customer database can make a world of difference for your customer communications, customer experience, and cost control. 

For years, financial services organizations have competed for consumers’ business. This competition has historically been based on the size of these organizations’ branch networks and the convenience of their branch locations. With the preference many consumers had for interacting face-to-face with tellers, ease of access to financial accounts, financial services, and personal advice depended on proximity to a branch office.