Press Release: U.S. Department of the Treasury Approves Mentor-Protégé Agreement for IBM and ASR Analytics
September 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Potomac, MD, September 30, 2008: ASR Analytics LLC, a consulting firm providing advanced analytic services to public and private sector clients, recently entered into a Mentor-Protégé agreement with IBM Global Business Services (NYSE: IBM), under the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, Mentor-Protégé program. Through this 10 month agreement (with the option to extend), IBM will provide developmental assistance and mentoring to ASR in areas such as corporate management and infrastructure and performance management. The Mentor-Protégé relationship will also foster increased collaboration between ASR and IBM in delivering consulting services to the Department of Treasury, helping the department modernize, manage performance, and provide outstanding service to taxpayers.
The Treasury Mentor-Protégé program was created to motivate and encourage firms to assist small businesses, including HUBZone small businesses, small disadvantaged businesses, women-owned small businesses, veteran-owned small businesses, and service disabled veteran-owned small businesses. The program is also designed to improve the performance of Department of the Treasury contracts and subcontracts, foster the establishment of long-term business relationships between these entities and Treasury prime contractors, and increase the overall number of these entities that receive Treasury contract and subcontract awards.
According to Mike Stavrianos, a founding principal of ASR Analytics, the partnership will be mutually beneficial for all parties. “ASR is proud to have been selected by IBM Global Business Services and the U.S. Department of Treasury for the Mentor-Protégé program,” said Stavrianos. “While ASR will certainly benefit from the opportunity afforded by this innovative program, we plan to contribute greatly to make this a win-win-win partnership for all involved.”
IBM has participated in the Treasury Mentor-Protégé program since 2001, having served as a mentor to a select group of small businesses. IBM is a major provider of business and IT consulting services to the federal government and has extensive experience working with the Department of Treasury.
“ASR’s domain expertise surrounding tax policy and tax system administration, combined with their expertise in advanced analytics solutions will enhance IBM’s ability to provide unique solutions to its current and future clients within the Department of Treasury,” said Mona Kotlarsky, Executive Project Manager at IBM Global Business Services.
For more information about ASR Analytics solutions for government clients, visit: http://www.asranalytics.com/solutions/government/
About ASR Analytics, LLC
ASR Analytics LLC (ASR) provides customized business intelligence and analytic consulting services to clients in the public and private sectors. ASR aims to provide policy makers with self-service decision support tools to ensure regulatory compliance and increase organizational effectiveness. To learn more about our solutions visit: http://www.asranalytics.com/.
6 Best Practices for Successful Business Intelligence
February 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Business intelligence (BI) is not about technology. No doubt there is much technology involved, but a sound business intelligence strategy concentrates more on methods. The outcome of intelligence gleaned from a strategic reporting or decision support system should be an action or decision. The decisions made from business intelligence will likely lead to changes made in strategy and/or individual business process.
These changes in strategy and business processes will necessitate changes to one’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) or other transactional systems. For example, new business rules or codes may need to be added to the ERP in order to operationalize a decision that was made. This will require an understanding of the business rules engine of the ERP as well as the implications from a historical measurement perspective of changing or adding codes to the system. People will need to be trained and constituents may need to be informed of new rules.
BI is much more about organizational alignment or people and processes around a common set of strategies and goals then it is about technology. To that end, follow these 6 best practices to move your organization from silo-based planning to one that is aligned around a culture of evidence:
- Define areas for exploration - What subject areas need to be studied? Not all can be effectively studied at one time - not at the start - therefore, you will need to prioritize. The organizations leaders will need to set the priorities based on the key strategies that need to be affected.
- Articulate problem statements - Now you have identified the subject areas to be studied. What are the problems in that area? Simple year-over-year trend analysis will often highlight where the problems are lurking. The problem should be stated as follows: [Subject Area] is down by 15% compared to last year.
- Identify causal factors - Perhaps one of the most overlooked steps in the process. Your problem statements only tell you what is happening. It is critical that you find out why it is happening. Statistical models need to be employed to determine the key drivers influencing the problem area. Identification of the key drivers in the area will help you isolate the problem and determine the factors causing the problem.
- Determine corrective action - Once the causal factors have been identified decisions can be made and corrective action taken. True evidence-based decision making.
- Align people, process, and technology - Decisions inevitably lead to change. Most often the change comes in the form of a new business process. The new business process will need to be codified in the ERP system and people may need to be reorganized and/or retrained. This will be the hardest step in the process toward a culture of evidence, yet it is also the most critical.
- Measure outcomes - Now that people, process, and technology has been aligned to solve the problem, you must measure the effectiveness of this action. Be careful that you allow a sufficient amount of time for the impact of the change. In fact, decision makers should agree about the length of time they will permit for the action to take hold and pre-determine a point in time for re-evaluation.
As you can see from the diagram above, the process is cyclical. As decisions are made and corrective action is taken, key drivers will change. This will constantly cause the organization to reevaluate and revisit its strategies and tactics over the course of time.
Fair Lending Another Casualty of the Subprime Meltdown?
January 17, 2008 | 1 Comment
You’d have to do a lot to avoid discussion of the subprime mess and the effects that it is alleged to be having on the housing and financial markets (although we think there are more reasons for optimism than many, but more on that in another article). One area where we do have concerns is in the effect of the subprime cleanup on fair lending.
Fair lending compliance requires that regulated entitites (which includes essentially all retail mortgage lending institutions) provide government regulators specific facts on the mortgage applications they did and did not approve. These data are then examined statistically to determine if there is an observable pattern of discrimination in underwriting practices based on the treatment of members of protected groups.
In a recent article, the Washington Post describes the actions that lenders are taking to correct the underwriting excesses of the subprime boom. While the industry experts offer somewhat differing accounts of actions that are expected to be taken, all agreed that credit scores are going to lose some of their weight in the underwriting process, at least in the near term. To quote from the article,
But income matters now, and so does cash, said Sean O’Boyle, a vice president at SunTrust Mortgage in Chevy Chase. Lenders expect borrowers to have several months’ worth of mortgage payments in reserve and a steady job. ‘Job stability. Credit. Cash,’ O’Boyle said. ‘They’re all equally important. Not one of them overshadows the other.’
Unfortunately, moving to a broader set of measures of creditworthiness, while intended as a means of tightening underwriting, could achieve just the opposite, and cause fair lending compliance issues to boot. Remember that the pressure to maintain and increase loan volumes fueled the use of exotic mortgages to increase the number of eligible borrowers. In the same way there will be pressure to use additional information to cherry pick borrowers with borderline credit scores.
Here’s where fair lending compliance comes in – cherry picking borrowers based on any information not included in the compliance data provided to regulators introduces the risk that correlations will be found between protected group status and the probability of receiving a loan, even if no mortgage discrimination was ever intended. Is the value of cherry picking worth the potential compliance issues it might cause? We don’t think so.
Here’s a much less problematic solution to tightening underwriting requirements – demand higher credit scores from all borrowers and stick close to the information reported for fair lending compliance when making the underwriting decision. This would have none of the potential downside of including non-reported information and would require few changes to underwriting processes. It will be interesting to see if the pressure to maintain loan volumes or the need to assure regulatory compliance wins out.
ASR provides A-123 compliance services to the Veterans Administration
August 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
ASR Analytics is working with Grant Thornton to provide A-123 compliance services to the Veterans Health Administration. ASR is developing samples of financial records to be used as part of a valuation and accuracy study of VHA capital equipment. ASR is also providing discovery sampling methodologies to validate existing inventory records.
ASR again selected to provide A-123 and IPIA compliance services at the U.S. Department of Labor
May 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment
For the second year in a row, ASR Analytics is supporting the U.S. Department of Labor (”DOL”) Office of the Chief Financial Officer to validate controls over financial transactions performed by the Department. ASR is performing a variety of tasks surrounding selection, analysis, and validation of statistical sampling methodologies. DOL seeks to achieve three objectives through this project: (1) test internal controls over the key business processes, in accordance with the requirements of the revised Circular A-123, Appendix A; (2) satisfy the testing requirements for the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 for designated business processes/programs; and (3) project the amount of monetary misstatement that may exist in all material financial statement line items. ASR is performing this work as a subcontractor to Grant Thornton.
ASR to assist NASA comply with Improper Payments Information Act
April 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
ASR Analytics is working with Grant Thornton to provide selection, analysis, and validation of several statistical samples of financial transactions to NASA. NASA seeks to satisfy the testing requirements for the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 for designated business processes/programs.
ASR teams with Grant Thornton to help U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Agency manage EDA program impacts
April 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
ASR Analytics is awarded a subcontract by Grant Thornton to support an engagement with the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (EDA). ASR will bring leading edge econometric capabilities to the project in order to provide EDA with a study that yields an actionable, defensible, precise, and repeatable method for both measuring and managing the social and economic impacts of EDA programs.
ASR to develop personal income tax database for State of Maryland
March 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
ASR Analytics is awarded a project with the Office of the Comptroller, State of Maryland, Bureau of Revenue Estimates (BRE) to develop a specialized personal income tax database. BRE seeks to achieve four objectives through this project: (1) provide descriptive information across various population/geographic segments; (2) provide information to help answer policy questions; (3) provide information to help determine the impact of federal law changes; and (4) provide information which can be used to forecast State revenues. ASR is performing this work with Quantria Strategies and Analytika.
ASR to help U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with technology modernization effort
September 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment
ASR Analytics is awarded a contract with IRS Business Rules and Requirements Management team, to develop detailed requirements for Release 4 of the CADE system. CADE is the cornerstone of the IRS Modernization effort, and is the first new system in over 40 years for processing tax returns. ASR is responsible for mapping system capabilities to the CADE Enterprise Architecture, decomposing each of the capabilities into constituent requirements, and developing “business rules” that will enable CSC to develop the required functionality.
ASR documents procurement process for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
September 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment
ASR Analytics is awarded a contract with IRS Procurement to develop a Procurement 101 Reference Guide, which will document and illustrate the Acquisition Life Cycle in intuitive terms—enabling customers to quickly understand the processes, documents, offices, and individuals that should be engaged, depending on the type of acquisition they are planning. This project will also involve the development of a Procurement Customer Survey, lists of Frequently Asked Questions and Answers from procurement customers, and other work products to support effective project management (e.g., work plans, status reports, meeting minutes).