LSG Insurance Partners Deploys Altair's HiQube for Business Analytics to Streamline Customer Service

TROY, Mich., Aug. 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Altair Engineering, Inc., a leading global provider of simulation technology and engineering services, today announced that LSG Insurance Partners has purchased and deployed Altair's HiQube® simulation-driven business intelligence and data analytics solution.  As a result, LSG already has slashed the time required to prepare and broadcast dynamic reports for its sales team from as much as five days to now just minutes.

LSG Insurance Partners is a leading, single source provider of employee benefits, risk management and financial services.  Headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., LSG's team of over 100 insurance professionals provide consultation and value-based solutions to thousands of employers nationally.

In addition to dramatically accelerating the delivery of pertinent business information and metrics to LSG's staff to improve success rates, HiQube is allowing the firm to produce dynamic reports that are visually richer, with graphics and capabilities to drill down to core-level data for deeper insights. With HiQube, any authorized LSG employee can create a customized report, with the specific information they need, in only a few minutes.

Working with LSG, Altair consultants rapidly completed the process mapping, planning and implementation stages for LSG's HiQube solution, enabling the system to go live in less than four months. The results of the implementation have enhanced LSG's business analytics process.

Automated reporting that replaces manual processes

To analyze its own performance, LSG produces reports that incorporate win/loss analysis, advantages and disadvantages of various portfolio offerings, geographic insights and key performance indicators of its sales staff's accomplishments. Previously, LSG stored this data in a SQL database, recording which plans were proposed to customers, which ones were accepted or rejected, reasons why and other information. The company used Microsoft Access to both enter and pull information from the database. Retrieving the information in the form of a report required an IT specialist to write and maintain numerous SQL queries to obtain the necessary data.

The manual aspects of this process consumed significant amounts of time as IT staff prepared reports to meet all of the company's needs. The vice president of sales wanted to view customer data and key performance indicators for the sales staff to evaluate and modify sales strategies. Executives needed reports to understand the portfolios of carriers and the reasons they were selling or being rejected.

HiQube now has automated the development of these reports. It replaced the manual process involved in Access with near-instantaneous data retrieval from the SQL database. Instead of receiving a PDF document in their inboxes, executive staff now can turn to the HiQube Web server; choose the information they want to see by category, geography or other criteria; and view it immediately. In place of static, tabular- column-data reports, staff now can view visually rich reports with dynamic graphs and data, allowing them to drill down for more details.

"LSG Insurance Partners has reaped such important benefits in so brief a time because HiQube is designed to integrate with SQL Server or any relational store," said Altair CTO Yeshwant Mummaneni. "HiQube draws on the server's database to formulate reports, key performance indicators and graphical analytics that allow businesses to obtain the most from their SQL and HiQube investments."

In addition to saving days of time, HiQube is intuitive to learn and operate, and it allows any authorized person in the organization—not just one IT staffer in high demand— to produce reports on the fly.

"HiQube is helping us serve our customers better and more efficiently, and it differentiates us from competitors," said LSG Insurance Partners Senior Vice President, Todd Preston. "Our reporting is more streamlined, reliable and consistent; and the time we save in compiling and reviewing reports translates to more time that we can spend with our clients, offering them advice based on up-to-the-minute data."

About HiQube

HiQube is a high-performance simulation-driven business intelligence and data analytics solution for guided decision-making. Uniquely positioned as both an end-to-end BI solution and a complementary software stack extension, HiQube's multi-dimensional engine empowers stakeholders across the enterprise to connect dynamically to multiple data stores and ad hoc data sets within a single unified environment. Complex business models can be easily created in HiQube's combined multi-dimensional, relational and hierarchical data engine to deliver unparalleled decision-making power and improved business performance. To learn more, try HiQube live or download a free trial license, visit www.hiqube.com.

About LSG Insurance Partners

LSG Insurance Partners is a leading single source insurance solution, proudly serving clients throughout the Midwest and nationally. LSG offers expertise, market clout and exceptional service in commercial property & casualty, personal lines, employee benefits and financial services. By cultivating strong relationships with its clients, as well as with select high-quality insurance carriers and financial services firms, LSG provides the most innovative and cost-effective risk management and benefits programs available today. LSG helps clients understand their risks and creates solutions to protect their financial security. Learn more about LSG at www.lsgip.com.

About Altair Engineering, Inc.

Altair Engineering, Inc. empowers client innovation and decision-making through technology that optimizes the analysis, management and visualization of business and engineering information. Privately held, with more than 1,500 employees, Altair has offices throughout North America, South America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. With a 26-year track record for high-end software for engineering and computing, enterprise analytics solutions, and innovative product design and development, Altair consistently delivers a competitive advantage to customers in a broad range of industries. To learn more, please visit www.altair.com.

SOURCE Altair Engineering, Inc.