TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.
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24 | TH E M R EP O RT FEATURE T he term, "Big Data", has many connota- tions, some of which are accurate and others that represent misconceptions about what Big Data is and what it can do. Mortgage industry organizations rightly believe that Big Data— when used in connection with powerful analytics tools—can help provide vital insights into how their performance com - pares to industry norms; help them interpret customer behav- ior to identify evolving product and solution preferences; and even predict which customers are most likely to prepay their mortgage or go into default. Of course, at the heart of "Big Data," there is far more than just data. In fact, there are tremendous complexities associated with a Big Data strategy that must be expertly managed in order to derive the truly powerful benefits that are attainable. A Big Data program must be supported by a robust platform that is not only armed with the ability to access and pull in relevant datasets from internal and external sources, but also that quickly analyze and generate actionable insights from that data. With Big Data experts on board to help determine if the right in- frastructure and tools are in place and that data assets are fully acces- sible to deliver business intelligence benefits, the tremendous insights and overall gains that are possible make it well worth the effort to implement a Big Data strategy. In fact, those in the mortgage industry that have successfully implemented a Big Data platform are doing things today they could never have done before—and are deriving impressive results in areas such as customer satisfaction and retention, risk management, and operational efficiency. Leveraging Internal and External Data T oday, there is greater ac- cess to vast pools of data than ever before. In fact, the sheer volume of available data not only offers the promise of important discoveries, but it can also make it difficult to isolate actionable insights that are meaningful to the organization and beneficial to its customers. It has been challenging to har - ness the business intelligence power of datasets that are segmented In the Fast Lane Big Data has the power to drive the industry into the future with speed and dexterity. By Jerry Halbrook