The world has undergone unprecedented disruption in recent years. During these times, business leaders are laser-focused on identifying new business opportunities or acquiring new customers while protecting against credit risk exposure amidst uncertainty in the most resource-effective ways.

Business leaders need insights fast and updated frequently, especially in such an ever-changing macroeconomic environment.

For example, to get a comprehensive picture of a customer or prospect, non-bank lenders can rely on the Experian Non-Bank Bureau to make more informed credit decisions and, thus, manage risk better. When doing business overseas, tapping relevant information, such as Experian’s International Reports, can help companies strengthen their risk assessment and due diligence before moving into new markets.

Data has indeed become a game-changer in every business leader’s decision-making arsenal. Compared to those who depend less on data, highly data-driven organisations are three times more likely to report improvements in their decision-making, according to a PwC survey cited in a Harvard Business School article.

But data analytics projects can be long and tedious—not to mention expensive. While businesses want to leverage insights before making decisions, they can hardly do this in real-time. They have to access information from different sources and negotiate pricing with individual data providers before actual analysis work can begin. Moreover, hiring data scientists and analytics teams can strain most companies' resources. All these factors can translate to missed business opportunities.

With the Experian Ascend platform, you can make critical decisions 70% faster than traditional data analytics projects. With existing external data sources, Experian Ascend can drive higher data cost optimisation across your data analytics initiatives. 

Here are three use cases where businesses can leverage data to unlock growth opportunities and reduce credit risk.

1. Manage credit risk exposure

Portfolio analysis is an excellent way to understand customers and assess their risk level. Users can create risk models, such as propensity and custom models, by combining Experian Ascend’s analytics abilities with your in-house data and alternative data sources, like ACRA and SME Network Score. This way, businesses can create an environment where data analysts can explore, experiment, and visualise their potential risk exposure.

2. Understand a new market

For businesses wanting to expand into new segments, market analysis helps decision-makers understand the sectors they want to explore. Especially with rapidly shifting market conditions, it’s essential to leverage data to understand the risks and opportunities. Research on the SME landscape in Singapore and how it was impacted by COVID-19, for example, can be done by bringing the data together in the Experian Ascend platform.

3. Identify potential leads or target customers

Businesses can identify new entities that look and act like your ideal customers by leveraging ready data and tools. With the use of look-alike modelling, you can expand your reach to include a bigger possible group of customers. Experian Ascend leverages demographic, risk, and behavioural data points to identify common patterns in your portfolio.

Similarly, market sizing and segmentation can divide a broad market into homogenous subsets based on common needs, interests, and priorities. This would help business leaders design and implement strategies, including identifying target customers.

Data analytics as a core business need

Data can help you navigate and thrive in this new landscape. With the economy opening up, banks, fintechs, and B2B lenders need to identify and acquire the most credit-worthy customers. But they need access to the right data efficiently and cost-effectively.  Experian Ascend is available as a platform license or in-demand service, depending on your needs and existing resources.

For instance, an institution can opt to pay a yearly license, and their data scientists can have access to anonymised datasets to be used in their modelling. Alternatively, a lender without available data analytics resources can leverage Experian’s in-house experts for their analytics needs.

Experience having data at your fingertips so you can make better decisions, seize new market opportunities, and drive business growth. Find out more about how Experian Ascend can help your organisation harness powerful insights today.