SDA India is an online resource for Software, Development,IT, Architecture, Open Source, Mobile, Security, Databases, Delphi, C, OS, Asp, .Net, Php, Xml, Java

Enterprise Decision Management (EDM) has now become one of the major streams in business enhancements. As Business Intelligence played a role in making business better, EDM is making it wonderful. Cutter Consortium describes EDM as "EDM is emerging as an important discipline, due to an increasing need to automate high-volume decisions across the enterprise and to impart precision, consistency, and agility in the decision-making process." and goes on to say that EDM is implemented "via the use of rule-based systems and analytic models for enabling high-volume, automated decision making." SDA spoke to Bill Waid, Vice President, Custom Solutions, Fair Isaac, on EDMs, its benefits and its capabilities in making business swift, agile, more responsive and lastly helping to get more revenues.

SDA: Enterprise Decision Management or EDM is emerging as a new alternative to BI and oft-spoken word. So what is EDM and what keeps it distinct?

The main subsystem of EDM is data integration and that does have a lot of value. Data extraction comes in to very quickly with new business policies or activities to get them into place. Historically the downfall of the IT project has been the inability to do that. So, EDM actually more than just BI which just gets you data out of businesses so that it is executable. EDM has five pillars: 1. Precision 2. Consistency 3. Agility 4. Speed 5. Cost of doing that.

EDM from our perspective looks after all these five points and determines what decisions you make.

SDA: EDM is mostly used in conjunction with Analytic model. So tell how does this happen?

From a product deployment stage, we manage EDM, we manage rules, we manage analytics and we manage a whole bunch of different things. EDM offers value from all these values. If EDM is properly implemented, you get better value. Your data tells you what you have done and what is the right decision. As you role out analytics, you can capture deployment; you can see what is happening, and measure effectively and refine it. It becomes a discipline that are heuristically driven or gut feeling, practiced and that makes EDM actionable. EDM is part of that strategy in that it becomes a part of analytical and deploy that as part of it. Analytics form a major part, as decisions constitute a greater role in it.

SDA: Can you speak about the EDM environment? And why should companies apply EDM?

Our viewpoint is that EDM is not a platform but an approach. The main job of an EDM is to prove what is right. So, getting EDM to work is actually to understand what it is, accomplish and secondly approaching your decision to control it and improve on them. There are host of solutions that help companies make a strong decision.

SDA: Tell our readers the benefits of EDM and how are you percolating those messages?

EDM is from our perspective an approach. It’s a process for our customers in various degrees of completion. It has come to a point where we have multiple departments and multiple deployments sharing one resource and database. There are other things in the financial stage where we are closely looking at information state. We are effectively taking our claims history to customers and showing them that and appropriately pricing and selling our EDM solution. EDM can be effectively deployed and adopted at various stages.

SDA: Where should a company start with a EDM project? How long does it take to implement or how much does a company need to implement EDM?

It’s actually a more functional area and scope of the impending rollout is pretty easy. Look at insurance sector. The rollout is 6-9 months. But to achieve full enterprise adoption it can take 4- 4 plus years. It takes time to go through all the enterprise area. To get there, we focus on our customers approach to EDM and make appropriate solutions.

SDA: What is the status of EDM globally in general and Asia-Pacific in particular?

I would say we are still in the early adoption stage of EDM. We have our message right out. We have significant investment in EDM on behalf of our customer today. We have resources and time and commitment from a strategic perspective. Specifically in AsiaPac, not only we have customers in financial services, we have a large number of customers in government space, transport and logistics and telco arena. We have seen the adoption heavily in India, Australia with a renewed focus in Hong Kong from South East Asia perspective.

SDA: It is often heard that EDM is more talked about today than it is actually practiced?

It is a fair statement to say that EDM is more talked about than practiced. I think a lot of that statement comes from the fact it requires more than just approach. It is now becoming a commonly used term. People who view IT Infrastructure account have just started to take that into account. Most of that is happening due to lagging infrastructure today. Renewed focus on making things work for you are important and that is where EDM is becoming bigger now. In other words, in due course, it is time to make efforts. We have our IT infrastructure more profitable to business and more nimble to the business change.

SDA:While considering EDM, what should companies do first? Where do you think companies typically go wrong with EDMs?

There are a number of places where EDMs go wrong. Probably the number one is change management. Not a technology issue, but change in the way enterprise thinks about decisions and managing them. Any core infrastructure that requires change is now the need of the hour.

SDA:Are there specific industries where EDM has been embraced and is more successfully employed more than other industries?

Currently financial industry is the key to EDM deployment-particularly in the lifecycle management. Core banking. Rewards calculation are next. Insurance is revolutionising the way they go to market and they are also one of the biggest users of EDM.

SDA:How can you calculate the RoI while implementing or after implementing EDM projects?

There are a couple of things to look into that. RoI is best calculated in the domain of the problem being solved. It is always the best way to look into the RoI. Approaching the EDM is dependant on cost of change. The other way is to look at the ‘opportunities lost.’ Those are the better returns. If you can better understand what your lost opportunities are, the RoI feels better. Benefits of EDM can be substantive.