Information Builders Launches Analytics 'Accelerators' Targeting Vertical Industries

Information Builders is expanding its WebFocus business intelligence platform with a new set of Accelerators that provide pre-configured analytical capabilities for specific vertical industries.

For IBI partners, the new Accelerators offer a way to speed up WebFocus implementation projects and quickly demonstrate the WebFocus platform's value to customers. IBI also plans to tap into their partners' industry-specific expertise as the vendor expands the Accelerators product portfolio.

"We anticipate building out more of these Accelerators with our consulting partners," said Jake Freivald, vice president of product marketing at IBI, in an interview with CRN.

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The Accelerators provide interactive reports, data visualizations and executive dashboards with key performance indicators in specific use cases in certain industries. By packaging the software add-ons with WebFocus, IBI aims to improve the platform's self-service capabilities.

This week IBI is rolling out the first four Accelerators: in financial services, the Accelerator for Credit Union Operations provides executives and operations managers with information about credit union members, branches and lending performance; for law enforcement, the Accelerator for Officer Analytics helps law enforcement agencies identify trends and risk factors; In healthcare the Accelerator for Ambulatory Operations generates operational metrics such as patient visit productivity, patient condition categorization and other KPIs about a medical practice; and for insurance, the Accelerator for P&C Executive Insights offers analytical information that property and casualty insurance executives use to manage activities across product lines, internal operations and external channels.

IBI developed the Accelerators on the WebFocus Enterprise and Application editions and is offering the Accelerators for free with the WebFocus platform, Freivald said.

"We're showing the world how business intelligence and analytics can help in specific use cases and really have an impact on users' organizations," he said.

Accelerators are in development for other vertical industries, including manufacturing and retail, with some slated for release by the end of this year, Freivald said.

Solution providers can use the Accelerators to quickly introduce IBI's software to customers and potential customers and demonstrate the potential value of the WebFocus platform. And they can reduce the amount of time and resources they now devote to developing prototype systems.

Partners also can extend the capabilities of the Accelerators using their own vertical industry expertise and develop services around the software.

Freivald said IBI is not trying to supplant channel partners' vertical industry expertise with the Accelerators. The vendor, in fact, plans to work with partners with such expertise as they develop more Accelerators. Partners that provide intellectual property to Accelerator development will be given leads generated by those Accelerators, he said.