Information Builders — Helping Businesses Channel the Power of Big Data to Drive Decisions That Positively Impact Strategic Operations and Bottom Lines

TL; DR: Big data has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue in recent years. But, for Information Builders, it’s more than just the latest industry jargon. The company has helped entrepreneurs and businesses leverage the power of data-driven decisions for more than three decades. Today, Information Builders is continuing its mission to give organizations worldwide the tools to find potential in their digital data, empowering clients to boost business intelligence capabilities and drive strategic change through scalable software solutions.

If time is money, it’s easy to see how countless hours spent processing expense reports and invoices can drain a business financially. Often, companies that devote inordinate amounts of time to such tasks end up paying the price in frustrated employees, sluggish productivity, and diminished bottom lines.

That’s where Chrome River Technologies comes in. Using its streamlined Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) expense reporting and invoice management tools, the company helps more than 1 million users worldwide automate expense and invoice processes to increase productivity and cut costs.

Recently, Chrome River decided to take things a step further for clients by weaving comprehensive analytic and business intelligence (BI) tools into its existing platform.

“Our customers are continually requesting information, and we wanted to empower them to get into the data on their own — to analyze, visualize, and create reports the way they want to create them,” Alan Rich, Chrome River CEO, said in a case study. “They began to ask more complex questions, and we wanted to help them obtain answers through a self-service environment.”

To get the ball rolling, Chrome River turned to the experts in data management and analytics at Information Builders. Tasked with incorporating reporting software into Chrome River’s existing cloud apps, the team at Information Builders quickly began developing a compatible and robust analytics system. As a result, Chrome River’s expense reporting tools now provide clients secure insight into their data through interactive dashboards and portals that detail spending patterns, productivity, and compliance.

Information Builders has been helping clients — such as Chrome River and others with varying needs — leverage the power of big data to achieve business objectives for more than 30 years, and the many endorsements on the company’s website from hundreds of organizations spanning a variety of industries are a testament to this. With a mission to help clients develop useful analytics based on reliable data, the company is driving strategic transformation for businesses competing in today’s digital world.

With a broad range of software solutions in data management, BI, and analytics, Information Builders has continued to evolve over the years — and 2017 has been no exception. In May, Goldman Sachs’ Private Capital Investing group led a growth equity investment in the company, providing Information Builders with additional resources, and the company’s new website and refreshed branding serve as a reflection of that development.

“It’s been an important year for Information Builders,” Gerald Cohen, President and CEO of Information Builders said in a press release. “Following the Goldman Sachs investment, we’ve focused our efforts on positioning the company for long-term growth and success as an independent software provider.”

And, as Gerald noted, evolving the organization’s brand has been integral in allowing Information Builders to communicate its value proposition and how it helps customers advance their missions.

Information Builders has also made a number of tactical hiring decisions this year, including the appointment of Frank J. Vella as COO and veteran industry analyst Lyndsay Wise as a leader in the company’s professional services division. In addition, the company has been recognized for achievements in customer support and was recently acknowledged for providing a wide range of functionality and value for organizations.

Overall, this momentum will help Information Builders further its commitment to helping customers realize the benefits of big data through its ever-expanding portfolio of business intelligence, analytics, and data management platforms.

“As we look to 2018, we’re feeling energized and refreshed, and more committed than ever to helping customers succeed in this new connected world,” Gerald said.

Central to the company’s data management solutions is WebFOCUS, an innovative BI and analytics portal that enables users to create secure data systems and applications that serve a wide range of needs. With flexible hosting and deployment options, the comprehensive platform empowers users to access, explore, and leverage BI on any device, throughout their enterprises and beyond.

WebFOCUS can be deployed on-premises or through the company’s Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud hosting solution, which provides users with a computing platform, infrastructure, operating systems, and other tools — with the choice between virtual and private servers running on Windows or Linux.

All options help clients uncover data-based insights through comprehensive, scalable analytics that adhere to the strictest security requirements, and, today, millions of customers use the platform. To serve such a wide market, Information Builders has gone to great lengths to ensure the portal is suitable for technical and non-technical users alike. For the non-technical, self-service tools make creating, analyzing, and sharing data a breeze — while trained analysts can explore data on a higher level to reveal significant trends, anomalies, and patterns.

Recently, WebFOCUS was recognized as a leader in the FrontRunners Quadrant for Business Intelligence software based on its core capabilities, which include embedded visual analytics, custom dashboards, and collaboration tools. The qualities for which the platform was recognized ultimately enable companies to leverage the full potential of their data and make data-driven decisions based on those insights.

“It’s encouraging to see that our solutions are helping customers to deliver better data and better analytics to more people and improve decision-making across their organizations,” Gerald said in a recent press release.

Omni-Gen, the company’s data integration and mastering platform, provides a single stage for generating comprehensive management applications built around data integration, data quality, and data management.

Omni-Gen comes in three editions developed around four data-related processes (profiling, integration, cleansing, and mastering) to provide users comprehensive views of their data. More benefits are seen with each additional process implemented, reducing the risks, costs, and time constraints inherent in the creation of data management applications.

The company’s most basic offering, the Integration Edition, includes everything an organization needs for data access, profiling, and integration capabilities. At the mid-level, the Data Quality Edition includes all features in the Integration Edition plus the ability to cleanse data through business-oriented user interfaces.

Finally, the Omni-Gen Master Data Management Edition includes everything in the Data Quality Edition, plus data mastering technology and additional remediation capabilities.

Information Builders also recently launched industry-specific Accelerators — predefined content packages in the areas of financial services, law enforcement, healthcare, and insurance — that integrate with and enhance the benefits of BI and analytics programs on the WebFOCUS platform.

“As a result of our long-standing engagements with customers from a variety of verticals, we’ve identified some valuable use cases for BI and analytics in these respective industries,” Gerald said. “With Information Builders’ Accelerators offering, we’re providing customers with out-of-the-box WebFOCUS functionality to immediately derive data-backed insights into these challenges.”

Cohen said the technology helps all users, regardless of technical experience, lay the foundation for further BI and analytics endeavors, helping them make more strategic decisions to meet their business objectives. The packages strengthen the self-service capabilities Information Builders is known for by providing the tools necessary for budding BI and analytics programs to mature.

For example, the Healthcare Accelerator for Ambulatory Operations helps physicians and practice managers gauge the state of their practice using metrics on visit productivity, payments, no-shows, and disease categorization; while the Financial Services Accelerator for Credit Union Operations includes pre-built content that helps executives understand underlying trends in areas like branch production and lending performance.

But the company is never satisfied with good enough. Pulling from its vast experience with a number of clients in various industries, Information Builders plans for its Accelerator portfolio to pick up even more speed, with additional Accelerators for an expanded selection verticals to be released later this year. The additional offerings will make it possible for businesses in “numerous sectors to make more informed and efficient decisions that drive the business forward and lay the framework for further BI and analytics success,” Gerald said.