This year’s Data Impact Awards were like none other that we’ve ever hosted. While everyone attended from the comfort of their own homes (and timezones), we were still able to celebrate the fantastic achievements of our customers. From all corners of the globe, our customers have delivered incredible amounts of innovation in the enterprise, while overcoming many of the challenges and disruptions 2020 has brought. It was truly an inspirational evening and one none of us will forget in a hurry.
While all our winners are doing phenomenal work, one of the most exciting awards of the night was The Data for Enterprise AI category. This award recognized organizations that have built and deployed systems for enterprise-scale machine learning (ML) and have industrialized AI to automate, secure, and standardize data-driven decision making. It’s in this category, in particular, where we like to celebrate those organizations that have utilized the technology at their fingertips, taken a leap into the unknown, and reshaped the way they are doing business.
Doing just that, was this year’s award winner Experian BIS. As a global leader in consumer and business credit reporting, Experian gathers, analyzes, combines, and processes data to help people and organizations achieve their goals — whether that means planning for a secure future or getting to know their customers better. In fact, Experian admits to believing that data has the power to change lives. And, it believes that by helping people and organizations make the most of their data, it can make a positive difference to society and the communities it serves.
Let’s see what stood out for our judges when it came to Experian’s data journey and made them this year’s worthy winner.
The Data for Enterprise AI winner – Experian BIS
Based in Dublin, Ireland, Experian operates in 37 countries with offices in Brazil, the United Kingdom, the United States. The company employs approximately 17,000 people and aggregates information on over one billion people and businesses. The Data Enrichment team within Experian’s B2B business unit (BIS) is responsible for maintaining data quality and reliability. For years, due to the scope and scale of BIS data, data inconsistencies could only be solved manually at the pace that they were uncovered. For a data aggregator like Experian, sifting through these seemingly endless amounts of records, manually, makes solving these data problems a near-impossible task. Manual solutions were slow, time-consuming, and expensive and Experian knew something needed to change.
Automating processes to better serve customers
To solve this problem once and for all, and provide its customers with a rapid and seamless service, the Data Enrichment team turned to big data. Using Cloudera Data Science Workbench, the Experian BIS team built and launched six different data-maintenance apps, to tackle those previously unsolvable problems with machine learning (ML) and automation. For example, customers used to search the BIS database and find duplicate records. This was a common issue and a thorn in the side of customer experience. The team launched Velcro, an ML-based app that identifies and resolves entity resolution issues within the BIS Database, improving the structural integrity of commercial data. To date, the application has made 4.7 million entity resolution improvements and improved 2.8 million client experiences.
Creating a fuller picture with data
As a result, Experian has been able to provide its customers with a more complete and accurate business profile. As a data aggregator, the better and more accurate the data Experian BIS has, the more it can provide a full picture to its customers to help them make the right decisions and be more competitive. The first MVP launched by the team in CDSW was in early 2019 and saw productivity gains up to 3,000% with average unit cost reductions up to 99% when compared to the previous manual process.
We couldn’t be prouder of everything the Experian BIS team has achieved through harnessing the power of big data, from improving client experiences to maintaining its competitive edge in a saturated market. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for this outstanding organization.
If you’ve been inspired by Experian and think your company deserves recognition for how it harnesses data to drive innovation, we’d love for you to enter next year’s Data Impact Awards. We believe next year will deliver some real treasures in terms of artificial intelligence (AI) and ML innovation. So when working on new projects, keep in mind that successful implementations require a positive mindset, buy-in at every level, and the right technology to best support the business — so choose wisely.
While we don’t know if next year’s awards will be in person, or if we’ll be creating another magical night virtually, one this is for certain — if the standard of entries is anything like they were this year, the judges will be in for a treat!
Congrats again to the Experian team!
To learn more about the Data Impact Awards, our judging panel, and winners please visit: https://www.cloudera.com/about/customers/data-impact-awards.html
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