Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

Aperio CI Celebrates 20th Anniversary, Prospects Strong for More And New Solutions

July 09, 2010

The software industry is noted for brief corporate lifespans. Aperio CI, which makes data management solutions, is the rare exception; it announced the celebration of its 20th birthday, on July 1, 2010. With a quick look at the firm, at what it specializes in i.e. data management and what it has been coming out with just recently, prospects are strong that it will be celebrating more such milestones in the future.

 
Applications may come and go, but one constant is the need to find ways to more efficiently tap into, utilize, direct and protect the increasingly vast stores of information with which to grow sales by attracting and retaining customers, reducing costs and in turn bolstering profits. Creating and refining those tools is Aperio CI's forte.
 
Starting out as a service provider, since 1990, Aperio CI has since refined its data management and pricing analytics capabilities. In the beginning data was processed at its data centers using the applications it developed for its software as a service model. Over time, the solutions have been developed and have now become off-the-shelf products. While clients now have the option of licensing Aperio's products, the SaaS model still remains popular says the firm.
 
Aperio's first client was MCI, providing the analytical engine behind the entire MCI Proof of Savings and Proof Positive campaigns where Aperio re-priced MCI customer's bills under every MCI and AT&T plan offered at the time. A statement was sent to MCI customers that showed them exactly how much they saved with MCI versus AT&T. This program was revolutionary; it gave MCI the leverage it needed to gain a significant amount of customers in a very short period of time. 
 
The program was such a huge success that it ran for six years with Aperio running the "behind the scenes" rating and analysis. Since then, and on the basis of that success its client list has expanded to include companies such as Rogers in Canada, Orange and O2 in the U.K., O2 Germany and KPN in the Netherlands, just to name a few.
Aperio's main focus has been in the telecommunications industry. It began with servicing local and long distance providers, and evolved into the ISP, 10-10-XXX and eventually into the mobile phone market. Today, Aperio is branching out into the banking, health insurance and utilities industries. It also partnered with Netezza, Teradata and Alliance Development Group of China to expand its reach both locally and globally.
For example in late June 2010 in the runup to its 20th birthday Aperio came out with three new solutions that are hosted on Netezza's appliances:
*          A unique data encryption tool that supports its cloud computing solution that solves the issue of protecting sensitive data while using cloud computing. Aperio created the solution to support massive scale processing and analytical processes that run infrequently such as weekly or monthly. The unique data encryption tool allows clients to encrypt only the sensitive pieces of data (e.g. account, credit card and phone numbers) with a very high degree of privacy protection to enable cloud computing for most data privacy sensitive industries.
The way it works is this: the client identifies the sensitive data fields to be encrypted. Utilizing Aperio CI's encryption software, they encrypt the data prior to sending it to the Aperio CI cloud. The Aperio CI encryption tool provides a one-time cipher which has billions of combinations, so each combination is only used once. The Aperio CI cloud processes the data in its encrypted format and never sees the unencrypted data. Once the information is processed, Aperio sends it back to the client who then unencrypts the data using a unique key created by the client during the encryption process.
*          The Insights telecoms reporting package to its CRM solution. Insights present a massive number of data elements within a single graphic enabling both executives and analysts to easily locate areas of interest. The tool then allows them to quickly zoom in on the important details. Insights spot the important nugget of information right away so you don't have to shuffle through lines of useless data in order to find the few important pieces.
With today's lower costs of storage and higher access speeds, companies are storing more and more data within their data warehouses, the firm points out. The challenge is digging through the massive volumes of data to find the few key pieces of information they need in order to take action and receive measurable results. Imagine having the ability to find, within minutes, small groups of high-value customers who are churning at high rates. Imagine what actions you would take if you could pinpoint exactly which currently active customers fit the same profile and were likely to churn within the next 60 days.
Aperio CI's Insights reporting package provides data in a visual format that enables both executives and analysts to quickly and easily spot key data elements, enabling them to drill into these areas to pinpoint when and where they need to take action
*          Visual Finance Manager (VFM), an application aimed at small community banks created with a bank's personal and business customer in mind. Aperio's Visual Bill Manager (VBM) has been used within the telecommunications industry since 2006. It has been cited as one of the top reasons why telecommunications customers who use VBM stay with their provider. VFM is the offspring of VBM, and does everything community banks and their banking customers could want and more.
With VFM users may identify each of their transactions, and associate them to a particular job or simply split them between business and personal usage. This is perfect says Aperio CI for the small business owner or the business traveler who needs to separate their business and personal expenses. VFM combines all bank services e.g. credit cards, debit card, savings, checking and loans and customer data in one portal and seamlessly bolts on to a bank's existing online banking tools.
The Visual Marketing Dashboard, a feature of VFM, enables financial institutions to construct highly targeted offers to customers, based on intelligent parameters. For example, if a customer has a checking and savings account with a bank, but they do not have a credit card; VFM can be set to display a credit card incentive offer on the customer's home page. Offers made to specified customers will change as they purchase new services or modify the way they utilize the services that they have. Additionally, community banks may opt to advertise community events using the marketing dashboard as well
 "I started Aperio 20 years ago and am proud to say that we've always delivered everything we've been asked to, always on-time and on-budget," said Duffy Mich, Chief Executive Officer of Aperio CI." Our clients always see us as the "they deliver what they promise, no exceptions, no excuses" company. I've always believed in our business model.  I love the intense focus on being intimately involved with our clients, and I have an absolute passion for enabling (and encouraging) all of our staff to get everything right, every day.  I've always believed that laser-focus on quality of excellence in delivery has been, and continues to be, the cornerstone of who we are and what we do.  Over the years, we have built processes, practices and procedures that allow us to succeed."
 

Brendan B. Read is ContactCenterSolutions's Senior Contributing Editor. To read more of Brendan's articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Juliana Kenny



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