Cognos and Using Business Intelligence to Improve Customer Service & Profitability
While one of the most common reasons for amalgamating the data from disparate databases is to
gain a better insight into customer needs, it is by no means the only reason. By allowing users
to easily extract critical information through easier access to data, more intuitive reporting
analysis and forecasting tools, users are able to report business improvements in such diverse
areas as asset management, customer service and resource planning.
Yorkshire Water, one of the UK's private water companies, has 4.5 million customers in a
catchment area greater than many small countries. Each day the customers consume 1.3 million
cubic metres of water. Their Customer Services Development team wanted to track customer
demands more closely and produced a detailed specification of what sort of reporting they
wanted from their legacy system. The existing system recorded all customer contacts, names
and addresses of callers, and the nature of the call. The Project Team used Cognos' Powerplay
software in conjunction with a Geographical Information System (GIS) from Mapping Services.
"They didn't want to replace their legacy system" said Cognos' Peter Weston, "But they wanted
to enhance it with greater management reporting and to provide some means of proactive incident
management". Yorkshire Water divides its region into 1,500 Leakage Control Zones, any of which
can be isolated in the event of an emergency. By aggregating the data from the customer database
into these zones, managers are able to ask questions like "What are the areas this month where
we have had most complaints about dirty water?" or "Where have most burst pipes occurred?"
Although originally intended as a management level analysis on customer contacts, the system
has shown its use in other areas, for example in capital spending analysis. "It allows Yorkshire
Water to identify where the resources should be concentrated to improve services" said Weston.
Another utility that found Cognos' Powerplay software helped manage resources was Chevron.
They were unable to obtain a wide picture of how much crude oil was on its way to supply ships,
held in Chevron's oil refinery tanks or already at market terminals. The information was
available, but was spread across diverse range of different transactional databases that
detailed the production and sales in infinitesimal detail for accounting and billing purposes.
But the information was inaccessible to line managers. "Powerplay allows managers to cut and
slice the information", said Weston. "They can then paste it into spreadsheets and word
processors to produce ad-hoc reports and email relevant charts and figures to colleagues at any
Chevron site". This information allows production rates to be tightly tailored to meet predicted
demand without excess inventory or the risk of failure to meet the demand. "Chevron were able
to locate more than $5 million of excess petroleum throughout nearly 100 US refineries and
marketing terminals. It also helped reduce an additional $5 million spent financing this
excess inventory annually."
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