the lewis group banks on Pentaho to drive performance gains

LONDON, July 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Delivering the future of business analytics, Pentaho Corporation today announced that leading UK debt collection agency, the lewis group, has chosen to implement the integrated Pentaho Business Analytics and Data Integration platform as part of a larger technology refresh designed to support its growth plans.  In addition to its exceptional data integration and visualisation tools, Pentaho was chosen for its commercial open source model, which enables the company to manage IT spend and establish a modern, scalable architecture as it rolls out new performance management dashboards.  The lewis group engaged Pentaho partner Millersoft to support the implementation.

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The lewis group, which handles debt collection for clients in sectors as diverse as finance, retail, insurance, education and central and local government, is currently implementing the data integration, reporting and dashboard capabilities of Pentaho Business Analytics to deliver performance management dashboards to help improve operational efficiency:

• Key client 'RAG' reports - RAG (red / amber / green) reports present information about how the lewis group is performing for its key clients against budget expectations. The reports present KPIs (key performance indicators) that show, for example, how much, how fast and how effectively it is able to collect debt on specific clients' behalf. Each KPI is presented in a dashboard, with a red, amber or green light, providing an early warning system so that problems can be fixed before they escalate. Currently, RAG reports are live and rolled out to 15 senior managers.  
• Departmental reports – these reports are to be based on aggregated client data and will run at a departmental level (e.g., by office or team).  They will measure general business performance. 
• Individual performance scorecards – these will measure individual performance for employees like debt collectors, who have specific targets for collection and quality each month and paid bonuses against those targets. 

Millersoft, Pentaho's top-performing Gold partner in the UK, is delivering and supporting the reporting dashboards, which will be rolled out through the second half of 2012.  Millersoft is also handling other aspects of the implementation, including the construction of a new corporate data warehouse that uses an innovative 'data vault' approach. This new data warehouse is designed to make it easier for the lewis group to manage operational data from multiple sources as business requirements change and grow.  Millersoft is using Pentaho Data Integration to move data from the lewis group's operational systems into the data vault.

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Howard Bethell, Change Director, the lewis group commented, "Our customer base is expanding rapidly so we had the choice of either throwing more people at our current reporting system or modernising our systems to create extra capacity.  Pentaho's integrated business analytics and data integration software and its commercial open source model made it technically and economically viable to choose a modern, more sustainable approach."

Davy Nys, VP EMEA & APAC, Pentaho said, "More and more UK financial services companies like the lewis group are discovering the financial and technical advantages of our modern, end-to-end business analytics platform. We are very pleased to be helping to support the company's expansion by enabling it to deliver fast, flexible and actionable performance management reports."

Calum Miller, managing director, Millersoft added, "Pentaho Data Integration was the perfect tool for moving data from the lewis group's operational systems into the new corporate data warehouse we built using the 'data vault' approach, which we felt provided the best flexibility and resilience to handle the company's future requirements."

• Learn about the advantages of Pentaho Business Analytics

About the lewis group
The lewis group is one of the UK's biggest and best performing collections businesses, achieving excellent recovery and market-leading compliance. The 40 year-old group provides collection, investigation, litigation and tracing services to some of the UK's leading private and public sector organisations.

About Millersoft
Millersoft, based in Edinburgh has been working with open source business intelligence software for five years and delivers solutions to companies across Europe including; HouseTrip, Air Menzies International, Regenersis and the lewis group.  Millersoft can deliver complete business intelligence solutions or train and mentor existing staff.  Millersoft specialises in Pentaho and is its number one Gold Partner in the UK.  For more information, visit www.millersoft.ltd.uk.

About Pentaho Corporation
Pentaho is delivering the future of business analytics. Pentaho's open source heritage drives our continued innovation in a modern, integrated, embeddable platform built for the future of analytics, including diverse and big data requirements. Powerful business analytics are made easy with Pentaho's cost-effective suite for data access, visualisation, integration, analysis and mining. For a free evaluation, download Pentaho Business Analytics at pentaho.com/get-started.

SOURCE Pentaho Corporation