Applying the Principles of Business Intelligence to Improve Collections Performance. A Decision Analytics briefing paper from Experian

Transcription

1 Applying the Principles of Business Intelligence to Improve Collections Performance A Decision Analytics briefing paper from Experian February 2007

2 Introduction Deploying Business Intelligence tools within Collections can result in significantly enhanced performance, with more revenue collected at a reduced cost. Background to Business Intelligence As more and more IT systems are deployed within organisations, there is an ever growing volume of enterprise data which, if analysed and modelled in a holistic way, can allow managers to improve performance and efficiency and respond quickly to new conditions. This opportunity has given rise to the concept of Business Intelligence (BI), which moves beyond historical reporting to include query and analysis, KPI performance management, predictive analytics and process optimisation. Although more typically thought of as an enterprise wide requirement, deploying BI technology in the collections field can lead to significantly enhanced performance with more revenue collected at a reduced cost. Current state of play in the collections department Currently most, if not all, revenue collection operations have yet to move much beyond historical reporting. Typically, end of day, end of week and end of month reports are delivered, either in hard copy from a central printing service, or via as a pdf document. Information is usually shown in tabular form and graphing and trending analysis has to be done offline using the ubiquitous Excel spreadsheet and pivot table. Often when a new report or variation on an existing report is required, it means a long wait for the IT department to author the new report. Alternatively, where collections users do have the facility to modify reports themselves, it can result in a proliferation of similar types of reports with no consolidation or summary information, thus making it harder for collections managers and team leaders to identify the decisions which need to be made to improve collections performance. Applying Business Intelligence to Improve Collections Performance - 2

3 Even in organisations with an enlightened BI policy, the focus is nearly always on deploying the technology for customer acquisition or regulatory compliance with the result that, even where the BI tools exist, they are not readily available to the revenue collections department. What more could be achieved? A significant amount! Deploying BI tools in the revenue collection area will allow users access to the same technology and functionality used by the sales and marketing operations of the business and provide the same opportunities for process improvement and performance enhancement. There are six areas where BI can make a real difference to collections, starting with enhancing the current range of management reports, right up to simulation and modelling new collections strategies and processes. The six areas are: 1. Interactive historical reporting 2. Real time performance management 3. Enhanced champion/challenger management 4. Trend analytics 5. Strategic business views 6. Strategy simulation and prediction Interactive historical reporting New BI technology does not imply that there is no place for traditional period-end reports. On the contrary, common reports, such as collector performance, can be quickly and easily re-designed to take advantage of the drill down capabilities offered by BI software to make the reports more accessible and meaningful. For example, in the case of a daily Collectors Performance Report, this can be redesigned for on-screen viewing (while retaining the hard copy print option) with a graphical summary showing just the key top level summary information. Using the drill down capability, managers and team leaders can quickly assess the overall performance, while at the same time being able to drill down to individual collector level to look at the detail but only when this is required. An example of a top level report using drill down Applying Business Intelligence to Improve Collections Performance - 3

4 Real Time Performance Management and KPI Monitoring Collections departments have always had targets to achieve typically targets in relation to cash collection levels and roll rate reduction. Now, the concept of KPI (key performance indicator) management offers collections professionals a much more powerful tool to improve collections performance. In collection terms, this means defining a set of metrics to be measured and then agreeing appropriate target levels against each metric. For example, cash collection targets may be established for individual collectors on a per day, per week and per month basis, measuring the number of payment arrangements agreed; payment arrangements met, outbound calls made and completed and inbound calls handled: the list is potentially a long one, so it is essential to work with a BI analyst to define the essential targets in driving improved collections performance. Once agreed, the BI specialist will create an on-screen dashboard to represent the KPI performance in the most meaningful way. This can include every option from tabular data and bar charts to dials and geographical mapping. Such dashboards are available to managers and team leaders at the click of a mouse and can be refreshed as often as required. Real time performance management can potentially create a massive data processing load on the collections system, so it is important to identify those KPIs where real time data is essential, such as hourly or daily targets, and where it is not, such as weekly targets and monthly roll rate monitoring. However, access to real time management information, particularly throughout the day, can be an extremely powerful tool in helping the collections team optimise their performance. Collectors can be-re-allocated to tasks that will improve performance, and worklists can be amended and re-scheduled to match the capability of available resources. For example, where inbound calls are taking longer to process than anticipated, resources can be moved from the outbound team to ensure that every call is answered and additional cash collected as a result. A further advantage of dashboards based on near real time data is the ability to define alert metrics. Such alerts could be current cash collection levels, or the size of a worklist in relation to the resources allocated. If a condition arises outside of the pre-defined limits, an alert in the form of an or SMS is automatically sent to a supervisor or manager so that immediate corrective action can be undertaken. A Collector Performance Dashboard Enhanced Champion Challenger Management Champion Challenger is a key tool in the repertoire of the Collections Manager, allowing continuous improvement in the collections process by testing new strategies and, where improvements are achieved, rolling out these strategies across appropriate segments of the debt portfolio. Applying Business Intelligence to Improve Collections Performance - 4

5 BI tools can play a key role in improving the effectiveness of the Champion Challenger process by generating reports and dashboards with greater granularity of information than can be achieved with the reports typically generated by the Champion/Challenger process. The usual objectives of a Champion Challenger test are to increase the amount of revenue collected from a given profile of accounts; to collect it earlier; to rehabilitate as many accounts as possible, and to achieve all this at the lowest possible cost. So metrics used are typically such measures as debt movement, roll rate, cure rate, days sales outstanding, activities performed and so on. Normally, the Champion Challenger process is run for between 3 and 6 months depending on the type of debt and then the results assessed. However, the concept of a Champion Challenger dashboard can allow managers to monitor the progress of the Challenger strategy on a day by day basis, providing the ability to end non-performing challenges early and fast track successful challenges into the collections environment more quickly. For example, a comparative dashboard could be designed to show the key metrics of the Champion Challenger on a daily trend basis, with the ability to view the effect of activities on call rates, cash collected etc. The ability to monitor on a daily basis helps, not only in understanding the dynamics of the champion/challenger process itself, but can also provide indicators for new challengers that could be deployed in parallel, thereby breaking out of the straight jacket of running challenges serially. Trend Analytics Understanding longer term trends lies at the heart of the process of continuous improvement in revenue collection. However, one of the greatest weaknesses of traditional collections reporting is that data is not stored and retained in a way that makes trend analysis easy. Some collections operations rely on regular export of monthly data sets to Excel, allowing trend data to be built up over time. While this can be a reasonable work round, it is clunky, labour intensive and has to be done offline from the collections system, thereby introducing a parallel stream of management report production. Integrating BI capability into the collections system means that trend analysis becomes an integral part of the process, with information available to managers at any time, not just at the month end. As a result, managers can quickly review the monthly trend line for cash collected, and then, if they choose, overlay line graphs for volume of accounts in the system and the value of those accounts to see if the collection rate is in step with these values or whether there is a positive or negative trend which may require management intervention. Cash collected Volume of accounts A trend analysis report Applying Business Intelligence to Improve Collections Performance - 5

6 A Strategic Business View Ultimately collections performance, by whatever KPIs and performance measures are agreed, will be influenced by the overall strategy of the business. Just as an enhanced collection capability allows new business managers to sell to more higher risk customers, secure in the knowledge that a robust collections process will keep bad debts under control, so a strategy of winning more high risk business can impact the performance of collections by increasing the number and value of delinquent customers. This could lead to managers wrongly concluding that the collections department was under performing, whereas when comparing like-forlike customers, performance had actually improved. For the collections team to take a strategic business view of the collections process it is essential that the BI tools deployed within collections are able to access and work with data held in other systems within the business, such as customer management systems and sales and marketing systems. This means that the BI system needs to follow all mainstream industry standards and methodologies for data integration, whether at the database level, or via the corporate enterprise integration architecture. The benefits for collections departments with the remit to use data from outside their immediate department can be impressive. The ability to use data such as initial application credit score or pre-delinquent behaviour monitored within the CRM system can have a major impact on the richness of the data used for collections segmentation and trend analysis. For example, a strategic business report may highlight the fact that customers who exceeded their shadow credit limit in the billing system are far more likely to lead to a bad debt write-off in collections information that could not be gleaned from the collections system alone. Value of accounts in collections Number of credit limit breaches 100% Value of accounts in collections Number of credit limit breaches 50% 0% A trend analysis report enhanced by data from outside department In addition, using BI for strategic business analysis allows the collections team to become part of the overall business process tracking collection rates alongside sales and profitability of the businesses product lines and services. Strategy Simulation and Prediction The same technology that is used for dashboarding can also be used to help predict outcomes of strategies and help answer a wide range of what if questions. Performance management dashboards, as described earlier, can be further enhanced with controls that allow users to flex business constraints and metrics, such as staff availability, or volume of accounts in collections to see what the impact of change is on the overall performance of the collections process. The result is a simple-use-tool that, without special skills or vast expense, allows Applying Business Intelligence to Improve Collections Performance - 6

7 hands-on managers to model changes. For example, a team leader can instantly see what the performance improvement will be of moving additional staff to manage a slow moving worklist, while fully understanding the impact of moving them from their scheduled work. More complex simulation and process modelling can also be achieved by building three dimensional data sets and looking for relationships between apparently unconnected pieces of information. This use of data mining can establish powerful predictive indicators, which can be used for such things as prioritising outbound calling to only those accounts with a high propensity to make a payment. The way ahead - deploying BI in the collections operation Where collections departments are operating on in-house systems or legacy products, the ability to use BI tools is limited, due to the difficulty of integrating the BI system with older technology. In practice, it probably means that the time has come for the whole collections system to be reviewed and updated. For those organisations running on modern IT platforms the issue moves from an IT issue to that of a BI process and knowledge issue. BI tools can be readily integrated with modern collection systems, but understanding how to deliver the BI capability without impacting system performance is an area that needs the skills of collections BI specialists. In the first instance, collections managers should undertake a strategic review of their current management reporting process and overlay this with a review of what could be achieved if new BI tools were deployed. The conclusions will almost certainly result in a compelling business case. With billions being written off in consumer bad debt, the question will not be can I justify deploying BI?, but why have we not exploited this technology earlier?. Applying Business Intelligence to Improve Collections Performance - 7

8 720 Waterside Drive Aztec West Almondsbury Bristol, BS32 4UD, UK Tel: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) Website: Experian 2007 The word EXPERIAN and the graphical device are trade marks of Experian and/or its associated companies and may be registered in the EU, USA and other countries. The graphical device is a registered Community design in the EU. All rights reserved.