4 1Man agement information Systems

CASE 1
eCoURIER, CABLEcOM, AND BRYaN CaVE: DELIVERING VALUE THROUGH
BusINESs INTELLIGENCE
are greeted with the words "How happy are you lake the eCourier happy test to-
Isitors to the eCourier We
day Those words and the playful purple Web site represent the company's customer satisfaction focus. And the
business intelligence.
company achieves that happiness through its focus on operational
Business intelligence Is moving out of the vory tower of specializedanalysts and is being brought to the front lines.
In the case of eCourier, whose couriers carry 2,000 packages around London each day, operational business intelligence
allows the company to keep real-time tabs on customer satistaction "This is a crucial differentiator in London's
competitive same-day courier market, where clients are far more likely to take their business elsewhere than they are to
reporta problem to their current courier," says the company's chief technology officer and cofounder Jay Bregman.
Just one online directory, London Online, shows about 350 istings tor courier services.
Betore implementing operational business intelligence, eCourier
to define IT as a crucial difterentiator.
Cofounders Tom Allason, FIGURE 1.1
sought
eCourier's CEO, and Bregman ditched the idea of phone dispatchers and
instead gave their couriers GPS-enabled handhelds so that couriers can be 1000
tracked and orders can be communicated electronically. They also focused
on making online booking easy and rewarding, and much was invested in
user-friendly applications: Customers can track online exactly where their 500
COurier is, eliminating the package delivery guesswork.
Today, 95 percent of deliveries are booked online; this means that
eCourier needs a much smaller staff for monitoring, tracking, and placing
orders, which in turn makes the company more scalable. Bregman says
this is notable in a market where many courier companies use telephone
dispatchers and guesswork about package whereabouts. Booking and
tracking automation-although innovative-did not complete the
customer happiness puzzle. Without leading-edge business intelligence, Access to quality information about customers helps
account managers could miss the same issues that plagued other courier companies succeed at delivering value to shareholders.
services-late deliveries, surly couriers, or even an unnoticed ramp-upin Source: Digital Vision/Alamy.
deliveries. "We're only one delivery away from someone deciding to use
a different delivery firm, " says Bregman.

So eCourier started to use software from a company called SeeWhy to try to generate customer data more quickly. "What's
"is its ability to report what's happening with customers instantly." When a new booking
unique about SeeWhy," says Bregman,
enters eCourier's database, the information is duplicated and saved into a repository within SeeWhy. The software then interprets the
data by comparing it with previous information and trends, and if it notices an anomaly, it takes action. If a customer typically places
an eCourier order every Thursday morning
between 9.30 and 10:00 and there's been no contact during that time, eCourier's CRM
team will receive an alert shortly after 10:00 that includes the client's history and the number of bookings it typically places in a day.
to tweak the system to
of fine-tuning to get the metriCS right. For example, the company had
Bregman says there's a fair amount in business occurs. Getting
in activity so that it doesn't
slew of alerts once the after-Christmas
send a drop
recognize expected shifts
send alerts and how best to optimize the system is an ongoing process, he says.
that perfect balance of when to
is deepened with
to establish a "normal client booking pattern trom the first use, which
The SeeWhy software is designed
in boOkings, an increase in bookings, or a change in dormant account activity generates
each subsequent booking. A sharp drop-off in the case of increased
that client's account manager, the manager
uses the opportunity to problem-solve or,
an alert that is sent to
services. I h e s e capabilities have provided a big payoff," says Bregman. He also
or international
activity, upsell to overnight or having to hire people to monitor "who's happy and who's not-we're
able
the system saves his company the expense
believes
customer team with a lot less.
to do a lot more on our
exist. Cablecom, a Swiss telecom company, used SPSS's statistical
to judging customer dissatistaction
Other approaches
from trouble tickets-such as the average duration of a ticket, or how many tickets
software to mine customer data, primarily could flag when a customer was at a high risk
customer over a specific time period-to build a model that
had been opened for a
Cesconi, director of customer insight and
"

to be only about 70 percent accurate, says Federico

of leaving. "But the model proved
retention.
he was able
research software to create an online customer survey, and from that
So Cesconi used SPSS's Dimensions survey losses
dissatisfaction usually begins around the ninth month of service,
with the bulk of the customer
to determine that customer
he offers to customers in the seventh
Cesconi then created another survey that now
occurring between months 12 and 14.
in specific complaints and problems. "Cablecom calls
customers
month of service, which includes an area where they can type
 Foundations of Information Systems in Business 5

within 24 hours ot completing the

to bolt, and the best chance at
survey," says Cesconi. "The two approaches together provide the best view of customers ready
In 2002, retaining them."
global laW firm
Bryan Cave faced the million-dollar
while simultaneously delivering the question: How do you make the most with
lawyers in 15 offices worldwide, were
highest customer value? The problem was pressing. Clients of themoney whichyour resources
firm, now nas
800
demanding alternatives to the traditional hourly fee structure. They wanted new models,
such as fixed pricing and pricing that was
But making money from these new adjusted during a project.
billing
Projects weighted too heavily with a law strategiestime required the complicated balance of staffing and
partner's
Devoting too little of a partner's time would leave would be expensive (for the law firm) and notpricing for profit.
clients feeling undervalued. optir
achieved by spreading partners' time throughout a number Optimizing profit and perceived value had to be
of cases and balancing the
the less-expensive fees of associates and remaining resources needed for a case with
Bryan Cave's ClO John Alber. paralegals. "Clients are most
likely to stay with you if you deliver just the right
The law fims traditional method of
mix, says
analyzing collected fees and profit used a spreadsheet that was
Spreadsheets provide a level of detail complicated and took too
confusing and difticult to work with." Alber
that can be valuable for
analysts," says Alber, "but the information in a spreadsheet canlong be
says he decided it was better to build an
intelligence tools. Although the company will not release easy-to-understand interface using
specific figures, both profitability and hours leveraged-the hours worked business
equity partners and all other tee earners at the firm-have by
2004, according to Alber. increased substantially since the company implemented its first Bl tool in
The tools also allow lawyers to track
budgets in real time so that they can make
a diversity dashboard, which tracks
the hourly mix of women and adjustmernts quickly. The Bl tools even provide
will license to Redwood Analytics for sale to minorities working on the firm's cases, a feature the
other law firms. company
diversity reporting process required by many clients. In other The firm developed this diversity tool to bring transparency to the
its fees and helping clients better words, the tools provide Bryan Cave with a method of customizing
understand what they get for their
As an illustration, Alber
points to the customized pricing one lawyermoney. to his real estate
square feet," says Alber, "and this client couldn't understand gave client. "Developers think in terms of
as for a why legal fees for a 400,000-square-foot building might be the same
4,000-square-foot building, though it required the same amount of
staffing modeling tools and historical analysis tools to determine whether it the lawyer's time." So the lawyer used the pricing and
the size of their projects. made sense for the law firm to charge clients based on
He found that while there was risk of
firm. The result made
underpricing large buildings, the deal volume in small buildings offset that risk for the law
per-square-foot pricing possible.
"It may be possible that someone with
enough willpower or manpower could do that using traditional analysis," says Alber,
"but this lawyer had the information
right at his fingertips." Business intelligence enables "us to be in touch with clients and shift
things around in response to what customers are asking, says Alber. "

and customer service capabilities required Adopting new and improved project management, pricing,
planning, appropriate pacing, and user buy-in.
"In today's environment, you can't do value innovation without
being in touch with the economics of your business, without
really understanding where you make money and where you don't, and that's what business
"Our goal," he says, "is to build the best intelligence tools do," says Alber.
long-term relationships in the world.
Source: Adapted from Diann Daniel,
"Delivering Customer Happiness Through Operational Business Intelligence," CIO Magazine, December 6, 2007; Diann
"How a Global Law Firm Used Business
Intelligence to Fix Customer Billing Woes," CIO Magazine, January 8, 2008, and Mary Weier, "Dear Customer: PleaseDaniel,
Don't
Leave," Information Week, June 18, 2007
Case Study Questions
1. How do information technologies contribute to the business success of the companies depicted in the case? Provide an ex
ample from each company explaining how the technology implemented led to improved performance
2. In the case of law firm
Bryan Cave discussed above, the use of Bl technology to improve the availability, access, and presenta-
tion of existing information allowed them to
provide tailored and innovative services to their customers. What other profes-
Sions could benefit from a similar use of these technologies, and how? Develop two different possibilities.
3.Cablecom developed a prediction model to better identify those customers at risk of switching to other company in the near
future. In addition to those noted in the case, what other actions could be taken if that information were available? Give
Some examples of these. Would you consider letting some customers leave anyway? Why?

Real World Activities

1 Use the Internet to research the latest offerings in business intelligence technologies and their uses by companies. What
differences can you find with those reviewed in the case? Prepare a report to summarize your findings and highlight new
and innovative uses of these technologies.
2. Why do some companies in a given industry, like eCourier above, adopt and deploy innovative technologies while others in
the same line of business do not? Break into small groups with your classmates to discuss what characteristics of companies
COuld influence their decision to innovate with the use of information technologies.