data analytic solutions_newsletter_volume 1_may 2011

8/6/2019 Data Analytic Solutions_Newsletter_Volume 1_May 2011

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ume 1, May 2011


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We are now fully into the new fiscal year. Once

again, I want to welcome you to the Data & AnalyticSolutions (DAS) practice. The Knowledge Services

and DW/BI businesses are now fully merged and you

would have seen the tremendous press coverage we

have received on announcing this new entity. We

are also participating in the Gartner BI conference in

Los Angeles and the attendees are very interested in

MindTree.

I may start sounding like a broken record, but I truly

feel this is a great time to be a part of DAS.

Companies are awakening to the potential

opportunities around their data, but they are alsorealizing the issues they may face in tapping it. This

creates great opportunities for us MindTree to the

rescue!

Our official tag-line is: Harnessing the Power of

Data

This is a simple statement, but it is what we do. This

is also what companies need. We are well-

positioned to take a leadership role in the industry

and I cant wait to see our growth and successes this

year.

Our major differentiator lies in the fact we can be a

one-stop-shop for companies. We have four main

pillars of growth:

1. Analytics2. Business Intelligence3. Information Management4. Research

When you wrap our technology capability around

these four pillars, our story becomes very

compelling. With 800 people in DAS and growthplans to reach 1000 DAS MindTree Minds this year,

we are certainly one of the largest service providers

in this space in the world. It now becomes our

job to shout this to the industry and fill up our

pipeline with new opportunities.

We achieved $2.2M in revenue in the month of April.

Our Top 5 accounts were: 1) SVB; 2) CIT; 3) Unilever;

SCOTT STAPLESHead, Data and Analytic Solutions

4) ITG; and 5) AIG. We are off to a great start, but

we need to figure out how to grow our existing client

base and produce high-margin, annuity based

revenue streams.

We have a great team in place. A team who knows

how to deliver value-add. When you look at the

cool projects in MindTree almost all of them are in

DAS.

Our investments in things like Trade Promotions

Analytics, Open Source Analytics, RUBIC, and otherareas are starting to pay off. We should get

incremental growth from these business drivers and

they also give us further differentiation in the

market.

We still have some work to do in terms of putting

better processes in place, improving rates at certain

clients, increasing utilization, and achieving

operational excellence. But, the good news is we

see these challenges clearly and are working daily

towards solutions.

I would like to leave you with an excerpt from an e-

mail I received recently from Shiv, who runs the

Middle East business for MindTree: I am at a

dinner hosted by SAP and the feelers I am getting is

that all Indian SIs are weary of us when we engage

in a DAS opportunity. I have got statements that if

MindTree is present in a DAS opportunity, it is better

for them to withdraw than try to fight us. This

message I got from HCL, Wipro, Cognizant, and CAP

Gemini. So, somewhere in the region we have hit a

good note!

This is a great e-mail to get. Lets hope thatsometime over the course of the year, we receive

similar ones from all the Geo Heads around the

world. Again, welcome to DAS and heres to a great

2011/12.

from the Leaders desk


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The current day BI tools fail to meet the needs of

most Business Users where they need quick answers

There is also an option to switch to the to on -the-

fly questions, easy to use interface, access to all therelevant corporate information to enable them to

make smarter, more effective business decisions.

They prefer to reach out to the IT team to get

answers to the questions that they have.

There is also a trade-off while using the current day

BI tools the information is retrieved faster on small

amounts of data or the speed is compromised while

retrieving large amounts of data.

With SAP Business Objects Explorer, the power of

business intelligence is put into the hands of the

business users. SBO Explorer provides a Google-likesearch experience, where the most relevant business

information is found based on the keywords

entered. The data can be searched without the need

for any predefined report or query, and without any

prior knowledge on the data or the data model.

The SAP BO Explorer interface on the i Phone

The most relevant keyword search results are

presented first, with the solution automatically

generating the chart that best represents the

information for immediate insight. The visualizationcan be changed by the business user with an easy to

use intuitive interface. More insights into the data

can be got by drill-down or drill through options,

providing the flexibility to change the measure

against which the data is being viewed.

There is also an option to switch to the regular table

view for those who are interested in getting quick

access to the actual numbers.

The SAP BO Explorer features Easy drill down, drill up and

through

SAP BO Explorer also allows you to share insights

with others easily via email, embedded URL, and

other popular BI formats.

Benefits of SAP BO Explorer1. Very quick response time: The application delivers very high

performance on very large datasets, upto billions of data records2. Easy Information Access: SAP BO Explorer provides a Google-like

search experience, with intuitive v isualizations

3. Low Maintenance Intuitive functionality allows first time users to

get started without any training. The search and exploration

functionality can be added to the existing SAP Business Objects BI

deployment in as little as few days without the need to roll-up or

aggregate any data

4. High Scalability The software offers linear scalability upto

terabytes and IT effort reduced upto 20% with no need for

performance tuning

Srivatsa R Kondapalli


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It is hard to think that a severe recession could have

a silver lining to it, however, the downturn that

were just coming out of (assuming the possibility ofa double dip is behind us) has provided the

impetus for businesses to search for and find areas

of improvement. A critical part of this involves

understanding the data that businesses have at their

disposal, and making sure that this information is

readily available in a form suitable for interpretation.

In some regards, the hotel industry has already

begun to leverage their data to uncover areas for

improvement, looking at key parameters such as

revenue per available room (REVPAR). REVPARallows hotels to keep track of performance both at a

property level as well as at an aggregated level at

different components of the group hierarchy. Hotels

have also been looking at data which provides

leading indicators such as advance booking patterns,

etc., either formally or intuitively. However, with the

rapid improvements in tools that help build

dashboards to provide visibility on-demand, there

is an opportunity for hotels to actually capture

trends proactively and take action. This could mean

launching a promotion for certain specific propertiesor a region to improve sales or increasing rates

because demand is stronger than expected in a

specific region

You might say So what? I have been using reports

to get this information. Whats the big deal about

dashboards?

Dashboards with drill downs provide property

managers a self-service tool to look at key

performance indicators (KPIs) and drill-down to the

report level for those KPIs where there is variance

from expected values. This process could either

uncover a disturbing trend that needs to be fixed, or

it could identify positive things happening in a

particular region that can be replicated in

geography. The ability to drill down into various

quadrants of a dashboard offers phenomenal

possibilities; e.g. one could identify the points of sale

contributing to lower advance booking, the most

significant individual properties contributing tolower REVPAR, the sales teams that are performing

exceedingly well, the affiliates whore contributing

the most to your business, etc.

To reach this point however, demands that hotels

have meaningful data consolidated and in the right

place. This means putting together different portions

of data such as customer information, past sales

trends, and competitive data, to name a few, into an

organizational data warehouse. Once this is done,

hotel managers can use a multitude of tools to builddashboards and relevant drilldowns.

Some of the recent advancements in the area of

information integration, dissemination and data

visualization have opened up numerous avenues to

profit from the current data deluge. There are some

key trends, which will have a significant impact on

the way information is consumed and utilized for

decision making among hotels.

1. Lets consider the example of a budgethotel chain that specializes in properties

that are located along key highways in the

geographies that they operate in. This

means theyre geographically distributed

and possibly logically grouped along a set of

key highways. These hotel chains will find it

immensely useful to see trends while

correlating it to geographic information.

This is where Geospatial Data

Visualization can play a critical role.

Geospatial data visualization allows the

hotel management to interface the data

from the business intelligence systems with

tools like Google maps and Bing maps. This

helps them superimpose key performance

measures on maps which are interactive

and provide drill downs and aggregations

on the maps. In effect, this makes it very


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easy to measure, analyze and report

performance across various locations and

routes.

2. Next, lets consider the example of a hotelexecutive who has to place a request with

the IT (Information Technology) department

to generate a report that allows him or her

to understand the impact of an event (such

as a sporting event or a Royal wedding).

Even best-in-class IT departments have alead time for generating customized

reports. Now, consider a situation where

the hotel executive or the executive admin

could actually generate these reports

themselves. Self Service Business

Intelligence allows a person to do just that.

There are a number of reporting and

business intelligence products available,

which now make it possible for the

information consumers to directly interact

with the data stores and build their ownview and reports. These advancements are

making more and more organizations move

away from canned and pre-formatted

reporting or from ad-hoc requests for

customized reports, which restricts the

capabilities to explore and analyze data for

business insight.

3. With the rapid advancement of mobiletechnology, smartphones are now

ubiquitous. So, why wait to get to a PC to

have the dashboards and drilldowns?

Mobile Business Intelligence enabled by

products like RoamBI, MoBI, etc., which

deliver data and insight on the move on

mobile devices, empowers you to have

information on the go. These tools also

provide the capability to send alerts based

on business rules setup, thus helping pro-

active monitoring of key performance

measures without the need to sift through

the large volume of data and reports. The

Director of hotel operations can now have

the required information about a particular

property on his mobile device and analyzethis while he or she is at the property rather

than having to carry a printed copy of

relevant reports!

On contemplation, one can see that the hotel

industry is sitting on a wealth of data. Data when

effectively analyzed through intelligent solutions and

techniques offer a wealth of information. This

information can then be leveraged to optimize

operational parameters, improve customer

understanding, increase sales and provide a better

customer experience.

In summary, we believe that 2011 is the start of the

decade of effective information analysis for the

hospitality industry. The current wave of technology

advancements, both in data visualization and

devices, provides an opportunity, like never before,

to effectively analyze data and visualize the

information in a manner that aids proactive action.

Now, only one question remains are you going to

be riding the wave?

Praveen Jhamnani Ranjith Kutty

The Article is an abstract from the White paper titled BI Analytics

for Hotels, written by Praveen Jhamnani and Ranjith Kutty of

MindTree.


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If you think about the future, it is inherently

uncertain. You don't know which customers will fail

to pay their bills, will crash their cars or will desert to

a rival supplier. If you did know you could dosomething about it - make them pay in advance

rather than offering credit, charge them a higher

insurance premium or make a proactive retention

offer. And your business would be the better for it.

Lacking a crystal ball, however, most companies

seem to resign themselves to not being able to do

anything about these kinds of things and become

entirely reactive - putting customers into collections,

raising premiums for those that crash and chasing

after customers who leave.

But companies that understand the power of

predictive analytics can become proactive. Predictive

analytics are not perfect at predicting the future but

they allow you to see how likely something is. Take

our three examples:

Historical data about which customers paidon time and on the behavior of customers

before they stopped paying on time can be

used to predict the likelihood that a

particular customer is at risk of not paying

on time.

Analysis of the behavior of cars and driversinvolved in accidents can find the

characteristics of cars and drivers that

increase risk and a model developed to

predict the likelihood of a particular

car/driver combination having an accident

in the next 12 months.

The changes in behavior of customers whowent to a competitor while they were still

customers can be analyzed to identify those

behaviors that should be considered

triggers for proactive retention - the

behaviors that make it more likely that this

customer is considering leaving.

DAS offers a broad range of Predictive Analytics

solutions in the area of Customer Marketing

Analytics. The solutions range from a set of tools,

capabilities, and methodology for approaching the

various aspects of marketing analytics and

optimization. Here is a list of tools and capabilities

that the DAS Predictive Analytics team provides the

clients to help them meet their business needs:

Customer acquisition & Conversion:Predictive analytics helps to target right setof customers who give high response to the

marketing initiatives and create high value

to the business. This helps to reduce the

acquisition and serving cost and thus

increase the revenue generation.

Value enhancement: In this stagepredictive analytics helps to enhance the

value of an existing customer by

segmenting the customer groups in order

to understand their needs and do cross-sell

and up-sell as a value addition. This alsohelps in doing the targeted campaigns

based on the customers need.

Retention: Triggering early signs on churnindeed helps an organization to take

necessary steps in order to minimize

customer attrition and also to unearth the

reasons which could cause them.

Differentiated Strategies across Customer Lifecycle

In a nut shell, predictive analytics plays a significant

role at every stage in a customer lifecycle by

converting a typical customer to a profitable

customer and eventually increasing the value.

Tool Expertise: SAS 9.2, R and TIBCO S+ 8.1

Domain Expertise: Retail, CPG, BFSI and Travel

Philip S Vincent Srinivasan JT


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1.Assume you are using a basic calculator and press thenumbers in the order shown, replacing each question

mark with a mathematical sign. Plus, minus, multiplyand divide can each be used once only.

8 ? 5 ? 2 ? 7 ? 3 = 24

In which order should they be used to score 24?

2.Fill in the missing words so that a chain is formed witheach word suffixing the previous word and prefixing the

following word.

COLOUR _ _ _ _ _ LESS _ _ SIDE _ _ _ _ _ HOUSE

What are the missing words?

3.Jean lives in Edinburgh and her birthday is on 14thNovember, Mildred lives in Inverness and her birthday is

on 4th December and Geoff lives in Elgin and his

birthday is on 6th February. Does Theo live in

Helensburgh or Airdrie and what is the date of his

birthday?

4.Which of these letters is the odd one out?

A F H K L N

5.Use the letters given to complete the square so thatthree other words can be read downwards and across.

What are the words?

A A A D E E L R R

L I F E

I

F

E

Interesting Facts on Facebook1. Al Pacinos Face Was on the Original Facebook

Homepage

2. Facebook has 30,000 servers supporting itsoperations

3. Facebook manages more than 25 terabytes ofdata per day in logging data, which is equivalent

to about 1,000 times the volume of mail

delivered daily by the U.S. Postal Service.

4. Facebook currently has about 230 engineers onstaff, who manage data for more than 300

million users, which equates to a ratio of one

engineer for more than 1 million active users

on Facebook!!

PUZZLES

AnswerstothePuzzles

1.8*5/2+7-3

2.Point,onandlight.

3.HelivesinHelensburghandhisbirthdayison15thOctober.Thesecondletterofthepersons

namegivestheinitialoftheirhometownandthe

lastletteroftheirnamegivestheinitialofthe

month.Thealphabeticalpositionofthelastletterof

theirnamegivesthenumberofthemonth.

4.N,becauseitisnotinthefirsthalfofthe

alphabet.

5.Idea,fearandearl.

data analytic solutions_newsletter_volume 1_may 2011

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