Submitted By: Ankit Suveer Deeraj Kumar College:SIBM Bangalore

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Every day, managers and senior-level staff within mining, metal extraction, forest department i.e natural resources agencies and (DNRs) ask two related questions: 1) How can we maximize the effectiveness of our programs and policies? 2) How can we maintain adequate funding to support our mission without eroding the quality of our natural resources, our services or constituent satisfaction? Traditionally, answers to these questions have been forged using simplistic query and-reporting tools coupled with instinct and intuition. Optimized answers to these questions have been all but impossible. A great many agencies still rely on operational and transaction data to determine future outcomes on the hope that hindsight can generate useful insight and foresight. But knowing what happened in the past is not the same thing as understanding why it took place, the factors that influenced the outcome and how to optimize the result in the future. Spreadsheets and basic reporting tools provide a rudimentary understanding of the agencys performance, but they cant provide the kinds of answers needed to elevate the organization into proactive, differentiated, sustainable success. Thats where analytics comes in. Thankfully, sophisticated, DNR-specific statistical methods have been packaged with prebuilt models and easy-to-use interfaces, so analysts without in-depth statistical experience can generate new levels of intelligence from data. Furthermore, these analytic capabilities have been integrated across organizational areas from operations, research, communications and enforcement. Decisions that were once made in isolation can now be based on a holistic perspective for the greater good. Using a common foundation, intelligence can flow across all related areas of the agency. Understanding constituent demand, support and usage can guide policy and program decisions, communications and marketing promotions, asset acquisition, and agency staffing. Data can support license and permit pricing decisions and feed into long-term financial strategies that benefit the state. The potential of this integrated approach should be self-evident. The best way to implement it has not been, however. Traditionally, data has been trapped in incompatible platforms and organizational silos that could barely speak to each other. An integrated analytic intelligence platform can help DNRs extract greater value from all their existing data sources transforming operational and transactional data from legacy systems into meaningful, forward-looking insights that can dramatically increase effectiveness, efficiency and revenue.

Where Human Intuition Meets Analytic Intelligence

Gone are the days when DNR operations, programs and policies could be governed solely by the instinct and intuition of managers schooled in traditional resource management. Todays agency leaders are faced with complex business issues, including determining the causes of declining participation, garnering political support, managing interrelated and sometimes competing missions (parks, watercraft, wildlife, forestry), and optimizing precious general fund allocations. DNRs have turned to a variety of technologies

in their quest to improve license-derived revenues, customer service and operational efficiencies. However, resource, customer and operational data collected from different systems often resides in disparate databases, across myriad functional divisions, bureaus and offices, leaving no practical and consistent way to analyze the information for insights. As a result, important decisions about service offerings, educational programs, pricing, promotion, positioning, allocation, staffing and other aspects of operations are made and executed based on incomplete or inconsistent information, leading to suboptimal actions and even costly mistakes. To survive and prosper in todays environment, DNRs need more. They must be able to readily access and analyze data to gain comprehensive, accurate and forward-looking intelligence, whenever it is needed. That kind of insight isnt generated by the registration systems that capture day-to-day transactions; they werent designed for that. Nor is it generated by the spreadsheets and data repositories, often referred to as analytic systems. Those technologies usually offer rigid and simple views of data. They can tally, track, sort and filter, but they dont synthesize data into the best information or provide a window into the future, a window necessary for proactive decision making. They cant distinguish meaningful trends from noise, clarify why events occurred, identify the significant factors that would lead to repeatable successes or accurately predict future outcomes. In short, they dont deliver strategic analytic insight. Delivering such advanced insight requires advanced capabilities based on true analytics, the in-depth mathematical investigation of relationships among many variables. While the definition may be intimidating, two important circumstances have opened up new opportunities for DNRs to exploit analytics like never before: Automated systems yield more data than ever. The burgeoning popularity of point of-sale licensing and permit systems, the growth of the Internet as an alternative sales channel and the proliferation of resource-focused data repositories is creating a wealth of data that decision makers can use to understand and optimize their agencies better. All that data can be transformed into meaningful intelligence more readily than ever. Advances in data management and computer processing have made it feasible to quickly distill forwardlooking intelligence from huge volumes of disparate operational, transactional and external data. Advancements in user interfaces and packaged applications enable business users to quickly conduct in-depth analysis, without relying on computer specialists or statisticians.

These factors, combined with spiraling costs and legislative pressures, are driving adoption of a new level of information technology based on DNR-specific models. Analytics can be applied to optimize many areas, such as customer relationships, demand forecasting, capital planning and overall agency performance. Analytic intelligence gives DNRs robust ways to understand what is happening and what could happen with quantified accuracy across programs, divisions, offices, bureaus and the entire agency.

What Can Natural Resource Agencies Achieve With Analytic Intelligence?

Guiding an agency with hindsight reporting is like driving a car by watching the rearview mirror. You know very well where youve been, but the road ahead is still paved with uncertainty. Analytic insight is like having an onboard navigation system. It predicts the road ahead and offers up the best path to reach your destination, in spite of a constantly changing environment. Many DNRs today rely solely upon basic reporting capabilities. Although basic reporting can be useful, it actually contains little analytic substance. Most reporting technologies merely draw on simple descriptive measures and additive capabilities: summaries, weighted summaries, averages, percentages, minimum and maximum values. A few

agencies are using online analytical processing (OLAP). OLAP provides a structured way to view and query data, and it may provide some insight into past trends and performance, but is difficult to determine the significance of trends using OLAP tools alone. In volatile environments, with so many dependent factors at play, past history (taken at face value) can be a very poor predictor of future events. You could surf the data for days and not find anything significant. Even if you did find something interesting, OLAP contains no mechanism to determine if the pattern, event or anomaly is actually significant. In contrast, analytics can span not only the past and present to distinguish significance from happenstance; it can also predict specific future outcomes. Analytic processes quantify known attributes, examine complex relationships among many interdependent variables and detect patterns using techniques from a variety of mathematical disciplines, such as statistics, econometrics, time-series forecasting, data mining and operations research. From huge volumes of raw data comes useful, forward-looking intelligence, presented in meaningful context. Users can drill into results to view detail, discern useful patterns from mere statistical noise, apply models and scenarios repeatedly to different data, select the visualizations that best clarify patterns and actions, and change conditions and assumptions to ask what if. Lets take a look at how analytic capabilities can enhance success in four key areas of DNR business functions: Resource management Understanding and forecasting factors affecting the resources you manage. Information, education and citizen relationship management (CRM) Targeting the right citizens with the right messages at the right time to educate, recruit, retain and maximize the value of each citizen relationship. Operations Optimizing the behind-the-scenes aspects, such as capital purchasing, staffing levels and asset management. Performance management Assessing performance from individual programs to the whole agency and understanding where changes will yield the greatest progress toward strategic goals and legislative and executive mandates.

Analytics in Resource Management

Which populations should be managed, at what age structure, at what levels, at which sites? How, where and when should resources be used? Traditionally, such decisions have been based on field research, historical information and intuition. Although useful, todays rapidly changing environmental conditions necessitate the ability to forecast impacts under alternative ecological conditions. Analytic solutions for resource management apply a rigorous, objective methodology to help understand the biotic and abiotic relationships that affect the resources you manage and protect. Analytics support optimal decisions about allocation and regulatory effects. For example, by augmenting existing systems with analytic capabilities such as forecasting, optimization and data mining, agencies can: Determine how to meet wildlife population goals under anticipated conditions that are based on past, present and future demand, carrying capacity and hunter/ angler demographics. Set harvest regulations. Forecast impacts of stressors (e.g., non-native species, diseases) on native populations. Explore and model alternative management strategies and their impacts.

When you have in-depth analysis of past performance combined with plans and forecasts of future demand, you can more accurately and most efficiently allocate resources across your programs and site locations. Truly understanding population demand patterns not just what was affected, but what those

patterns reveal about future potential enables you to ensure that services, programs and maintenance are scheduled at the right time and place, with the right resources

Analytics in Information, Education & CRM

Your organization spends precious resources designing and delivering programs to reach specific target audiences. Do you know how effective those programs are and what factors determine success? Are you delivering the best possible message to the right people, through the right channel, at the right time? Are programs designed for short-term, one-shot gains or for maximizing long-term citizen value? Are they coordinated and integrated across the agencys divisions or bureaus? Agencies can no longer view their recreational customers with a single perspective or at a single point in time. To maximize return from information, directors of education and recruitment/retention programs recognize that its time for a broader approach. It is essential to understand and appeal to citizens as individuals/households with known preferences and habits. Analytics makes this customer-centric vision possible. A host of available analytic tools equip researchers to fully understand their diverse audience segments, assess and maximize the lifetime value of each household, model what-if scenarios, predict behaviors, and optimize marketing and education communications. For example: Customer-base analysis projects license-derived revenues and lifetime value of a customer, enabling more effective use of communications and service offerings. Channel usage analysis assesses and predicts the most suitable and efficient channels for each contact activity and each citizen. Activity preference analysis assesses the types of resources and services used at the individual and household level across multiple divisions and bureaus. Bundling/cross-selling/up-selling analysis identifies activities and services that complement each other or will go well together. Customer loyalty/churn analysis identifies your most avid consumers, which individuals are likely to abandon outdoor-related activities, when they are likely to leave, and what factors influence their decisions to stay or go. All this information helps you devise better strategies to keep them. Demand forecasting generates reliable estimates of short-, medium- and long term demand so that services, programs and policies are always in place to meet citizen expectations. Market basket analysis assesses links and patterns in the mix of behaviors, choices and responses that customers make, with a view to improving cross-sell/up-sell opportunities, improving program and service introductions, maximizing usage of websites, and using loyalty promotions to increase retention. Segmentation analysis divides the customer base into groups that share common characteristics to support manageable, accurate, time-based market response propensity models.

By understanding citizen behaviors and preferences, agencies can create better defined targeted campaigns, reduce expenses (printing, paper, postage) while increasing response rates and agencyderived revenues thus effectively reducing dependency on state general funds. As DNRs gain a better understanding of citizens participation behavior, analysis can then be used to create more effective marketing and information/education plans for the next season. The essential foundation for any successful program is a deep understanding of current and prospective citizens using your services and products, not only as single entities, but as individuals within households whose circumstances and preferences change over time.

Analytics in Operational Optimization

Park stores, boating facilities and other citizen-facing activities rely on a multitude of support functions behind the scenes all of which must also be optimized. For example, now that analytics have given you an accurate forecast of demand by day, by location, by promotion and by price change this knowledge must guide decisions for maintenance, as well as for staffing at all sites. Thats just one example. In each operational area, DNRs need to answer complex questions. How do we align resources with the agency and the state strategy? Which locations will provide the most profitable return on real estate investment? How can we leverage IT investments for maximum value? Operations intelligence enables you to answer those questions more effectively and profitably. For example, by using analytic capabilities to delve into operational data, agencies can: Deliver predictive insight into supply chain costing, financial planning and activity based costing. Plan more effective staffing strategies for all areas of the organization. Enable the organization to realize the full potential of each IT resource through proactive planning. Establish the most effective supplier strategies, based on a multitude of interdependent factors.

Without analytics, a typical operations report might tell you how many units of a given product were sold at each site over a given time period. Such information provides a useful rear view into operational performance, but not a road map for you to confidently guide the business forward. By bringing analytics into the picture, the same foundation data could reveal why the products sold better at Region I locations than in Region II, what pricing modifications would produce the best combination of citizen loyalty, the anticipated impact of a specified promotion, and what would happen if you adjusted any factors, from the number of researchers in the watercraft division to the location of the new planned boat slip .

Analytics in Performance Management

Most DNRs have strategic plans that are managed at the department level in concert with statewide planning. However, with individual programs bearing primary responsibility for their share of agency revenue, theres always the danger that strategies designed at the species or local level could undermine higher level departmental goals. Or that strategies designed to increase short-term license revenues could undermine long-term financial stability. With performance management, you can align day-to-day decisions with goals and initiatives across the entire value chain and for the entire organization. Performance management relies on methodologies, including the balanced scorecard, to align diverse business processes toward shared goals, to communicate those goals across the agency and to measure progress toward achieving targets. Applying analytics to performance management quickly identifies areas where one program, site placement or marketing activity might be eroding others, or where special license retention successes do not contribute to overall agency success. A consistent performance management process enables the organization to fully understand how internal processes are performing and where trouble is brewing. Agencies can then better align investments, people, infrastructure and capital with overall strategic goals in ways that deliver expected results and meet overall objectives.

Analytic Business Intelligence

The portfolio of available analytic processes targeted for DNR organizations is extensive, but the real intelligence story is much more than a shopping list of discrete point solutions. True agency insight is about more than making smart investments in individual technologies. Its about what happens when those individual technology areas come together into a synergistic system. Success stems from an integrated suite of applications and technologies working together from a common data foundation to create a unified perspective generating consistent advantage within a climate of constant change.

Organizations getting the most significant returns on their investments are those that take a purposeful, pragmatic approach establishing an intelligence platform upon which they base all other enterprise business intelligence solutions. A single, reliable demand forecast, for instance, can also be used in site planning, marketing, logistics, recruitment and retention strategies, or staffing for operational benefit. Business intelligence that remains segmented by functional area can provide some value, but DNRs gain much more value from the same IT investment when those functional areas operate from a shared, cohesive foundation. The requisite foundation is a bedrock of solid data management capabilities designed to ensure that analysis starts with the best quality data. In the ideal IT framework, a unified, integrated data repository stores and manages all relevant data for the interdependent arena of DNR activities including data from disparate databases (such as point-ofsale systems, campground registrations and site usage logs), proprietary tools and external sources (such as purchased demographic or market data). Sophisticated data management processes transform operational data into cleansed, consistent, structured data in a form that is suitable for detailed analysis. This data management process is more than simply integrating data from disparate sources; it applies embedded rules that ensure data quality, so users can have faith in the accuracy of the plans, reports and analyses that are based on that data. The right solution must be able to integrate with any other system or platform and take full advantage of existing IT infrastructure investments. For example, if you want to use citizen behavior data to make better retention or marketing decisions, the DNR intelligence solution must interface with sales transaction systems and Internet customer data systems, regardless of operating system or hardware. This integration must be a two-way street. There should be a closed-loop, continuously improving process between the operational systems that transact day-to-day business and the business intelligence systems that help guide that day-to-day business to maximum efficiency and revenues.

SUMMARY
The future landscape will be defined by the DNRs that know how to maximize citizen satisfaction and revenue growth with the right combination of superior programs, friendly and efficient service, unique value, and locations that truly serve their communities. How will this be accomplished? It starts with understanding the citizen and then linking that insight into every decision thereafter, from site planning, merchandising and marketing to distribution, operations and finance. Armed with this understanding, DNRs can predict how best to serve their citizens ever-changing needs. SAS solutions support that very scenario, delivering an intelligence platform and DNR-specific applications for citizen intelligence, merchandise intelligence, operations intelligence and performance management. Together, this suite of solutions equips DNRs to ascend to Level 4 or Level 5 in the Information Evolution Model, to succeed through continual renewal and innovation.