Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) is expanding its enterprise data warehouse.

The BCBSNC Teradata warehouse, now in its fifth year, serves as an increasingly centralized enterprise database that provides detailed analytical intelligence on a large scale to improve the quality and cost of healthcare for millions of customers.

The Teradata system is an enabler of business transformation, moving the business beyond claims processing to becoming a trusted adviser in healthcare intelligence and planning, wellness management and patient counseling services.

The secure and protected Teradata environment helps BCBSNC analyze multiple terabytes of detailed data linked to millions of health insurance claims, patient experiences, doctors, hospitals, treatments, procedures and enrollment groups to answer complex questions and gain valuable insight into trends, costs and quality of care.

The Timberland Company, a global leader in the wholesale and retail consumer goods industry, will implement an enterprise data warehouse from Teradata.

Stratham, N.H.-based Timberland will leverage information from its new Teradata solution to drive increased visibility into its global sales and distribution channels to gain critical business insight useful in boosting brand leadership. The Teradata solution includes hardware, software and services.

Australian Pharmaceutical Industries (API) will implement a Teradata solution and Informatica's integration software for information delivery to support its pharmaceutical wholesale business division.

API's enterprise data warehouse (EDW) will include the Teradata Database and a Teradata 550P Server with 2.1 terabytes of spinning disk. Informatica will provide the data integration platform utilizing PowerCenter 8 and PowerExchange to support all of the data management for the EDW.

API chose the 550P server for its speed, simplicity and affordability, making it the ideal investment for the growing logistical demands of its pharmacy wholesale business.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC), a Massachusetts-based full-service health benefits company serving more than 1 million members, has expanded its data warehouse. The additional power will accommodate the organization's growing requirements for visibility to detail data and analytical business insight.

The Teradata platform allows a greater number of users to access data and information and has been a driver of significant cost savings as well as a means of providing more business value from HPHC's enormous data assets. HPHC has deployed an end-user adoption program for its enterprise data warehouse (EDW)-driven analytics initiative and is rapidly increasing the number of users on the EDW.

Celent, an independent research and advisory firm focused on the financial services and insurance industries, has recognized Teradata as the highest-scoring provider of profitability analytics applications, according to a report published by Celent. "Evaluation of Customer Analytics Vendors 2007," by Alenka Grealish, managing director of the banking group, was released after a detailed study and analysis of major technology-based analytics vendors in hardware, software and services.

The report describes Teradata as a "highly regarded data warehousing technology provider which was an early mover in the customer profitability analytics arena ... with Teradata Value Analyzer." The Celent report also states, "Teradata excels at amassing huge quantities of data and distilling them into profitability metrics."

A growing number of finance and IT organizations recognize the value of centralizing cross-enterprise financial and operational data and automating its analysis, according to a survey sponsored by Teradata. A key finding is that even the best enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, while delivering important operational and transaction processing value, do not enable the critical analytical flexibility and detailed insight that financial analysts now require.

Of the 360 respondents to the survey, which was completed by Unisphere Media, 71% said they struggle to collect data from multiple sources and perform analyses needed to answer unanticipated financial performance questions. Among the respondents, the most popular approaches to improving the effectiveness of the finance function include ERP application upgrades, cross-enterprise process standardization and implementing enterprise data warehouses.

Teradata has been ranked as one of the elite dozen most influential global companies to watch in 2008 by CMP's Intelligent Enterprise Editors' Choice Awards. Once again, Teradata has been ranked in "The Dozen" for providing exceptional vision, technology innovation and leadership, which help its customers use analytics for competitive advantage. "Naming 'The Dozen' ... is never an easy task," said Doug Henschen, editor in chief of Intelligent Enterprise. "We look beyond sheer size and technology breadth to consider vendors that are leading the market in terms of innovation and market influence."

The Brazilian magazine publishing group Grupo Padrão named Teradata products and services the best data warehousing and business intelligence (BI) solution of 2007.

Grupo Padrão's Standard Award for Quality is the only award in the Brazilian market that evaluates the impact of technology in business enterprises. The award recognizes companies that have contributed to the development of management best practices through the use of IT.

Teradata was nominated by Brazilian customer Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de Sao Paulo, one of the largest providers of water services and sewage treatment in the world.

Teradata Magazine-March 2008