AWS Completes SAS70 Type II Audit

We are pleased to announce that Amazon Web Services (AWS), the infrastructure on which the clario® on-demand analytic platform runs, has successfully completed a Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS70) Type II Audit, and has obtained a favorable unbiased opinion from its independent auditors. SAS70 certifies that a service organization has had an in-depth audit of its controls (including control objectives and control activities), which in the case of AWS relates to operational performance and security to safeguard customer data. AWS states that they "will continue efforts to obtain the strictest of industry certifications in order to verify its commitment to provide a secure, world-class cloud computing environment". You can read more in the AWS Security Center, including downloading the updated Amazon Web Services: Overview of Security Processes whitepaper.

B2B Marketing Channel Segmentation

clario Analytics' Deb Campbell, Co-Founder & VP, Consulting Services was recently featured in BtoB, the magazine for marketing strategists.

"With all the talk about how marketers are responding to the poor state of the economy, it’s important to consider that the core of database marketing best practices hasn’t changed all that much: Marketers still need to gather and keep the best data they can on their customers, understand them, segment them, track them over time, do some predictive modeling to market relevant to them and target new prospects most like them.

On the other hand, there is one element that really has changed over the past couple of years, and it may represent as big a challenge to marketers as the economy. I’m referring to the multitude of channels that database marketers now have to cope with." Read more...

clario 2.0 - What to Expect: Less Rework

When it rolls out this fall, clario 2.0 will represent a herculean development and testing effort on the part of our team. Previously, I wrote about the clario development roadmap, stating that the user community’s feedback is the lifeblood of our approach. This invaluable feedback continues to roll in and as a result we are constantly refining and enhancing our development initiatives. In a series of short posts over the next few days I will present the most important fixes and features included in clario 2.0.

First, less rework:

The Issue: As many who develop software know, in the delicate balance between functionality and release dates, functionality frequently loses. One such sacrifice in clario 1.x was what we refer to as destructive metadata. In clario today, any change to the configuration of nodes “upstream” results in the configuration of all subsequent nodes being cleared. This has been the user community’s single largest complaint and is our highest development priority.

The Resolution: clario 2.0 implements “non-destructive metadata” which dramatically reduces unnecessary rework. How does it work?

• Change an attribute’s name: clario simply updates the attribute’s name wherever it is used in the workflow.
• Change an attribute’s type or delete an attribute: A waterfall resolution algorithm is fired in the subsequent nodes that may require the user to take action, but preserves all non-affected configuration.
• Add an attribute: The new attribute is immediately made available in downstream nodes for inclusion in configuration.
• Disconnect a node: All downstream configurations are preserved. When a new connection is created on a node that has been previously configured, the resolution algorithms described above execute.

Hopefully you find these updates valuable. Please continue to leverage the forums on clarioanalytics.com and the support phone/email to submit your comments, questions, suggestions and concerns.

Matt
Co-Founder & CTO
clario Analytics

Benchmark Brands’ FootSmart Catalog Implements clario Analytics

clario Analytics’ on-demand advanced analytics platform saves Benchmark Brands money with better predictive modeling and contact optimization

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--clario Analytics, formerly Decision Intelligence, Inc., a Minnesota-based database-marketing solutions company, today announced that Benchmark Brands^® has implemented clario^® — clario Analytics’ full-suite of on-demand services for improved database marketing — after a head-to-head comparison against an industry-leading statistical software provider.

Benchmark Brands implemented clario stream, a contact optimization solution within clario that removes advertising waste, protects marketing investments and drives significant bottom-line improvements. In a four month comparison, a test group of customers received FootSmart catalogs based on clario stream recommendations. The control group of customers received catalogs based on Benchmark Brands’ previously implemented marketing recommendations.

The clario stream test group resulted in a 6 percent reduction in advertising costs for Benchmark Brands while generating a 1 percent revenue gain and a 4 percent profit gain. The increase equaled an annual value of more than a five-fold return on investment.

In 2009, Benchmark Brands, a direct-to-consumer healthcare products manufacturer and marketing company, is adopting clario’s predictive modeling capabilities for FootSmart and will rely on clario for a number of database marketing services, including attribute creation, production scoring and campaign selection, as well as making circulation decisions. Benchmark Brands also will rely on clario Analytics for marketing and management consulting services.

“Analytics becomes especially important in tough economic times,” said Alan Beychok, chief executive officer, Benchmark Brands. “We are getting the best value for our dollar by using clario Analytics to optimize our catalog circulation decisions. The clario solution suite continues to quickly deliver real results for our business.”

About clario

clario offers database marketers a new alternative for database marketing that rivals the computing power of traditional, business intelligence statistical software. The clario on-demand, analytics platform delivers best practices and advanced solutions to database marketers, such as clario stream. clario stream was developed to provide an optimal contact strategy for each customer. Using multiple inputs (customer file model scores, marketing meta-data, promotion history and saturation scores), the clario stream “engine” creates an individual contact plan for every customer, for every program and for every channel.

“We’re excited to work with Benchmark Brands because clario represents revolutionary solutions to age-old analytic problems,” said Bill Flach, chief executive officer and managing principal, clario Analytics. “clario was designed to improve the efficiency and quality of work produced by database marketers at every level, in any industry. There are distinct advantages: clario produces results, it is cost-effective and accurately reflects the way marketers want to interact with analytics.”

About Benchmark Brands

Founded in 1989 on the belief that a great feeling body starts with comfortable and healthy feet, Benchmark Brands is dedicated to being the leading direct-to-consumer retailer of foot and lower body healthcare products and comfort footwear.

With more than 2,000 products and over 50,000 SKUs in inventory, the company manufactures its own proprietary lower-body healthcare products, socks, hosiery and comfort shoes, as well as retailing select products that fit its goal of providing the highest quality healthcare products that promote wellness and comfort.

Benchmark Brands is headquartered in Norcross, Ga. and maintains its distribution facility in Memphis, Tenn. For more information visit www.benchmarkbrands.com.

About clario Analytics

clario Analytics, formerly Decision Intelligence, is a privately owned company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that provides quality products and services for companies that have large information databases used for marketing purposes. It specializes in analyzing vast quantities of consumer data to help companies market more efficiently. Comprised of industry leading experts, clario Analytics offers one of the most experienced, highly trained and well-respected staffs in the analytical community.

Decision Intelligence, Inc. Changes Name to clario Analytics

BUSINESS WIRE: Decision Intelligence, Inc., a Minnesota-based analytical database-marketing company, today announced that it will be conducting business under a new corporate trade name - clario Analytics. The official name change will better position the company to highlight its popular product offering, clario^® — a full suite of on-demand services for improved database marketing. The change in the company’s name will not affect the services or product offerings clario Analytics provides to its customers. Comprised of industry-leading experts, clario Analytics will continue to offer one of the most experienced, highly-trained and well-respected staffs in the analytical community.

“The name change to clario Analytics is to more closely align our company brand with our core suite of analytical product offerings,” said Bill Flach, chief executive officer and managing principal, clario Analytics. “Our clients will continue to receive the strategic analytical solutions and return on marketing investment they have come to expect from Decision Intelligence but now under the new name, clario Analytics.

About Clario Analytics

clario Analytics, formerly Decision Intelligence, is a privately owned company based in Minneapolis that provides quality products and services for companies that have large information databases used for marketing purposes. It specializes in analyzing vast quantities of consumer data to help companies market more efficiently.

clariovoyance

We strongly believe two keys to success for the clario platform will be transparency and engagement. Our experience is that the ideal clario user is one who sees clearly the direction clario is headed and has the opportunity to help us define our many meanderings along the way. With this vision in mind, I want to share our current development priorities with you. Note: "current" is the key word here. I'll be posting the roadmap on clariopedia so you can watch it morph over time.

I'll dig more deeply into each area in future posts, but for now a high-level summary:

• Standard Nodes: Research and experience guides our activities here. Bivariate entered beta in clario 1.3.0 this week, clustering (K-means and EM) development is underway with decision trees to follow.
  
• Continuous Improvement - Usability & Performance: This is natural progression, driven heavily by user feedback. We are constantly asking ourselves how we can make clario more intuitive and better performing (in both the user interface and data crunching). Aggregate, Missing Values and Join are all queued for node configuration redesigns.
  
• Productivity & Usability: These are significant enhancements (versus the more incremental changes above) to usability and the user interaction model. The primary focus of the team's activities for clario 1.4.0 is the implementation of "Non-Destructive Metadata". clario currently uses a destructive metadata model where upstream changes to node configuration results in a reset of all downstream nodes. This was a developmental necessity (simply from a time-to-market perspective), but one that causes our users tremendous frustration. Implementing graceful "conflict resolution" for these upstream configuration changes, which minimizes user rework, is our top development priority.
• clario Analytic Web Services Enhancements: Oddly enough, the clario platform can be leveraged without ever seeing the user interface (I know...shameful). Our goal is to allow organizations of all sizes to leverage the power of the clario platform seamlessly from their own applications via web services.
  
• Web Services Nodes: Perhaps our initial proof of concept explains it best: the USPS node will allow users to feed a file containing customer address information through the USPS Address Standardization process seamlessly within a single clario workflow. Other web services nodes will allow you to pull data in directly from third-party systems to create a comprehensive customer view.
  
• Massive Volume Scalability and Speed: clario has two limitations today, no single persistent file can exceed 5 Gb (compressed) and no file with more than 1,000 attributes can be read in. A long-term initiative is underway to leverage the power of Hadoop and the MapReduce model to drastically enhance the scalability and speed of the clario platform.

I hope this overview was helpful. Most importantly, I hope each and every one of you will leverage the forums on clarioanalytics.com and the support email address to submit your comments, questions, suggestions and concerns.

Matt
Co-Founder & CTO
clario Analytics

clario Analytics CTO in WTN News

Don't tell Matt Redlon that business intelligence is oversold.

Redlon, chief [technology] officer of the Eden Prairie-based clario Analytics (formerly Decision Intelligence), believes that when it comes to exploring the inner workings of business at its broadest levels, business organizations are wise to leverage tools that mine their data.

To Redlon, who was in Madison recently for a Wisconsin Data Management program, getting some answers to drive business performance management is a very real business need - especially when business clients are struggling with fundamentals like getting to know their customers and understanding the very nature of their enterprises.

See the rest of this article at WTN News.

Matt Redlon is CTO & Co-Founder of clario Analytics

clario Analytics President in DMNews

Does the sun revolve around the Earth or the Earth orbit the sun? This question challenged scientists centuries ago. A similar puzzle faces direct marketers today: Do circulation decisions begin with the catalog or the customer?

Since the first direct marketer faced the decision of whom to mail or not mail, circulation managers have lived in a catalog-centric, or vertical marketing, world. In this world, marketers are forced to choose which subset of customers should receive a particular catalog and then repeat the process for each subsequent catalog. Marketers who utilize this strategy consider their catalogs “the center of the universe.”

See the rest of this article at DMNews.

Randy Erdahl is President of clario Analytics/Decision Intelligence, Inc.

clario's Enabling Technologies

I had the privilege to present to the Wisconsin chapter of Data Management Association (DAMA) International this morning. This presentation was done under our consulting brand, Decision Intelligence, and focused on the technologies enabling the creation of a revolutionary application like clario. I've shared the presentation below and would love to hear your feedback. Thanks to everyone at WI DAMA for the opportunity.

Matt
Co-Founder and CTO

Why clario? Part 1: Technologies Converge

clario was born of many motivations. In part one of a series of posts, I’d like to address what is perhaps the most significant motivation: an observation that three converging trends present a stunning opportunity for a new predictive analytics platform.

First, “Web 2.0”. Yes, I’m aware the phrase is ubiquitous to the point absurdity. But, lets constrain the definition to two frequent features of this umbrella term: rich Internet applications (RIA) and collaboration. With rich, desktop-like user interfaces now possible via the web browser, a major hurdle to deploying applications requiring complex user interactions and visualizations has been overcome. Additionally, unlike traditionally deployed applications, the collaborative capabilities of a web-deployed application allow both producers and consumers of an organization’s predictive analytics to break free of their traditionally cloistered existence, significantly enhancing productivity.

Second, software as a service (SaaS). The tremendous growth of SaaS over the last two years is a testament to the real value the model offers to both providers and users. As much a business model as a technology, SaaS shifts the technology burden from the user to the vendor, lowering upfront costs and time to productivity, and ensures fast turnaround of new functionality. A key benefit to users of SaaS applications is the ability to subscribe for one low monthly price, paying for what you use, when you use it, versus large up-front license fees.

Third, cloud computing. Blogger and author Nicholas Carr recently summed up the dramatic transformation occurring in computing in his book The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google. The fantastic implications of the transition to utility enterprise computing he describes are particularly well suited to a data mining application. The critical observation is that enterprise analytics require significant computational resources for relatively short periods of time (or “bursts”). Purchasing and maintaining the resources to support these analytic bursts is economically prohibitive for many organizations. clario’s unique cloud architecture presents an organization with the unique opportunity to purchase access to massive computing resources, paying only for the bursts of analytic horsepower they require.

clario allows users to experience the game-changing convergence of these three trends in one powerful new analytics platform. Next up: Predictive Analytics - Exploding Demand and the Scarcity of Practioners

Matt Redlon
Co-Founder and CTO
Decision Intelligence, Inc.