ISDS CHAPTER 3 UPDATED ACTUAL QUESTIONS AND
CORRECT ANSWERS
Question:
Why is it important for IRS and for U.S. state governments
to use data warehousing and business intelligence (BI)
tools in managing state revenues?
Answer:
Revenues are complex and have many sources. This variety and detail make
understanding the data difficult, hampering efficiency. The use of BI tools
allows for better analysis, understanding, and governance.
Question:
2. What were the challenges the state of Maryland was
facing with regard to tax fraud?
Answer:
The state was facing tax fraud from fraudulent returns as other states were,
and the process of detecting and investigating potential fraud was time
consuming.
Question:
3. What was the solution they adopted?
Answer:
The state implemented a data warehouse from Teradata that allowed them
to examine data and identify/flag traits that were consistent with fraudulent
return. The state prioritized their efforts to go after refund fraud.
Question:
4. What were the results that they obtained? Did the
investment in BI and data warehousing pay off?
Answer:
The team was able to flag a smaller number of potentially fraudulent
returns, but those that they did identify were significantly more likely to be
false. This allowed the state to recover $7 million more, making the
investment pay off.
Question:
5. What other problems and challenges do you think
federal and state governments are having that can
benefit from BI and data warehousing?
Answer:
Applications are being developed relating to voter fraud, medical use, and
other tax issues.
Question:
, What are the main challenges for TELCOs
(telecommunications companies)?
Answer:
To stay competitive, TELCOs must continuously refine everything from
customer service to plan pricing and use the power of highly targeted data
analytics in helping the company secure or improve their standing in the
highly competitive marketplace. In greater detail, the major challenges
faced by both entrenched and new companies in this industry include:
retaining customers, decreasing costs, fine-tuning pricing models,
improving customer satisfaction, acquiring new customers, and
understanding the role of social media in customer loyalty.
Question:
How can data warehousing and data analytics help
TELCOs in overcoming their challenges?
Answer:
Highly targeted data analytics play an ever more critical role in helping
carriers secure or improve their standing in an increasingly competitive
marketplace. Argentina's Telefónica de Argentina used analytics for its
"traceability project," which tracked the factors involved in customer churn,
a big problem among phone service carriers. France's Bouygues Telecom
used BI technologies to facilitate cost reduction through automation via its
Teradata-based marketing operations management system, which
automates marketing/communications collateral production. Pakistan's
Mobilink uses BI to help acquire customers and grow their subscriber
network, largely aided by social networking.
Question:
Why do you think TELCOs are well suited to take full
advantage of data analytics?
Answer:
TELCOs control the telecommunications infrastructure, and acquire much
usage data as a result. They have the technical expertise to create, deploy,
and refine plans to address their business challenges. The industry and
mobile technology have expanded and improved over the years, which
provides a strong foundation on which to build intelligent solutions. The
data analytics solutions that have been created to meet these challenges
have also improved drastically over the past few years, placing TELCOs in a
good position to capitalize on their technological advantages.
Question:
What is BIGS?
Answer:
BIGS is the Business Intelligence and Global Standards program, a strategic
initiative for management information and business intelligence.
Its purpose is to deliver globally consistent and transparent management
information across functions.
CORRECT ANSWERS
Question:
Why is it important for IRS and for U.S. state governments
to use data warehousing and business intelligence (BI)
tools in managing state revenues?
Answer:
Revenues are complex and have many sources. This variety and detail make
understanding the data difficult, hampering efficiency. The use of BI tools
allows for better analysis, understanding, and governance.
Question:
2. What were the challenges the state of Maryland was
facing with regard to tax fraud?
Answer:
The state was facing tax fraud from fraudulent returns as other states were,
and the process of detecting and investigating potential fraud was time
consuming.
Question:
3. What was the solution they adopted?
Answer:
The state implemented a data warehouse from Teradata that allowed them
to examine data and identify/flag traits that were consistent with fraudulent
return. The state prioritized their efforts to go after refund fraud.
Question:
4. What were the results that they obtained? Did the
investment in BI and data warehousing pay off?
Answer:
The team was able to flag a smaller number of potentially fraudulent
returns, but those that they did identify were significantly more likely to be
false. This allowed the state to recover $7 million more, making the
investment pay off.
Question:
5. What other problems and challenges do you think
federal and state governments are having that can
benefit from BI and data warehousing?
Answer:
Applications are being developed relating to voter fraud, medical use, and
other tax issues.
Question:
, What are the main challenges for TELCOs
(telecommunications companies)?
Answer:
To stay competitive, TELCOs must continuously refine everything from
customer service to plan pricing and use the power of highly targeted data
analytics in helping the company secure or improve their standing in the
highly competitive marketplace. In greater detail, the major challenges
faced by both entrenched and new companies in this industry include:
retaining customers, decreasing costs, fine-tuning pricing models,
improving customer satisfaction, acquiring new customers, and
understanding the role of social media in customer loyalty.
Question:
How can data warehousing and data analytics help
TELCOs in overcoming their challenges?
Answer:
Highly targeted data analytics play an ever more critical role in helping
carriers secure or improve their standing in an increasingly competitive
marketplace. Argentina's Telefónica de Argentina used analytics for its
"traceability project," which tracked the factors involved in customer churn,
a big problem among phone service carriers. France's Bouygues Telecom
used BI technologies to facilitate cost reduction through automation via its
Teradata-based marketing operations management system, which
automates marketing/communications collateral production. Pakistan's
Mobilink uses BI to help acquire customers and grow their subscriber
network, largely aided by social networking.
Question:
Why do you think TELCOs are well suited to take full
advantage of data analytics?
Answer:
TELCOs control the telecommunications infrastructure, and acquire much
usage data as a result. They have the technical expertise to create, deploy,
and refine plans to address their business challenges. The industry and
mobile technology have expanded and improved over the years, which
provides a strong foundation on which to build intelligent solutions. The
data analytics solutions that have been created to meet these challenges
have also improved drastically over the past few years, placing TELCOs in a
good position to capitalize on their technological advantages.
Question:
What is BIGS?
Answer:
BIGS is the Business Intelligence and Global Standards program, a strategic
initiative for management information and business intelligence.
Its purpose is to deliver globally consistent and transparent management
information across functions.
