In a country where the availability of credit drives the economy and creditworthiness largely defines people`s lifestyle, the management of risk underpins the stability of the market.
The pool of information regarding the credit activities of people and businesses is nowhere so comprehensively dense as in the database of Information Trust Corporation (ITC), South Africa`s oldest established risk management information company.
ITC acts as a custodian of 14 million active consumer credit profiles and 350 000 active commercial credit profiles, and if a person or business has ever applied for credit, it is likely that their credit profile is stored on ITC`s database. The company supplies key credit and risk-related data to businesses throughout the country to help risk managers proactively manage risk. With the information age upon us, such information is becoming more valuable by the second.
With the advent of economic and political change in South Africa, ITC`s services have grown in value: the demand for credit has increased considerably while economic conditions have become volatile and unpredictable. The scope for growth in the risk management services industry has increased dramatically to facilitate the confident granting of credit.
While data from every new credit application enhances the depth of ITC`s information database, it also renews the challenge facing ITC to accommodate the dynamic requirements of its broadening markets. The battle for the consumer rand has elevated the simple credit-risk enquiry to a complex purchaser profile analysis with the ability to reveal buying trends and the ability to meet contractual obligations. In addition, the growing number of issues concerning credit, marketing and fraud are challenges to which ITC strives to provide solutions.
Ready supply of quality data
The exceptional calibre of risk-related data stored by ITC enables its clients to target market segments. Suppliers are streamlining their target markets and require that ITC complement their efforts with a ready supply of quality data.
For effective windowing of a credit applicant`s status, ITC`s ongoing process reengineering and database management capability is crucial. These key functions are owned by the Data Management division, headed up by Maria Stamatakis, ITC data director.
"ITC does not own the data," says Stamatakis. "As our corporate name suggests, we are data custodians and our responsibility and business function is to deliver meaningful information in realtime to our clients for superior decision support. While process reengineering and the integration of new technology are necessary for the delivery of our data products, our core business remains data."
Maintaining the competitive edge demands that ITC create new products quickly in response to customer requirements. Fundamental to such dynamic response is well organised data. The reorganisation of ITC`s legacy data is taking the form of a data modelling project with Software Futures using the Cayenne data modelling tools.
Michael Bornheim, Software Futures Data Futures manager, says: "ITC has recognised the need to use data modelling to rebuild its information systems into a robust yet elastic framework that can meet the varied demands of its clients."
That`s no easy task when you consider the varied sources that supply ITC with data. Among these are major retailers, banks and public sources such as the Registrar of Companies, Home Affairs, and magistrate`s and Supreme courts.
Stamatakis highlights the complication that data may arrive in many formats, from hand-written records by post to electronic delivery.
"The value of data modelling is that it seeks to understand the data used by the organisation," says Bornheim, "independent of its uses and its sources. Systems and structures put together this way are stable and offer a foundation on which to build functionally since they reflect the business`s underlying factors and issues."
Data modelling enables the construction of a shared data resource by providing a blueprint for the business`s database. It facilitates solutions to windows of opportunity through intelligent communication between analyst and user. The only way an organisation can manage strategic information, implement interoperable systems and establish true data sharing is by using enterprise information architecture. This architecture must be easy to maintain while providing operational data and strategic information that is accurate, valid and timely.
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