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Hapag-Lloyd, a leading global container shipping company, needed to create a realistic and production-like environment for core IT applications without disclosing any potentially competitive information. The company tests new application functionality using real data, a practice that helps ensure that issues are eliminated before any changes are put into production. However, due to the high level of integration of Hapag-Lloyd’s IT environment, which consists of its mainframe and a range of distributed systems, this was a challenging task. A new challenge arose in 2014 when Hapag-Lloyd prepared for a potential merger. This made it necessary to extend existing training materials and create up-to-date live training data. The challenge was to create a realistic and production-like environment for core IT applications without disclosing any potentially competitive information. As a result, Hapag-Lloyd realized it needed a test data privacy/optimization solution that would allow it to securely share this information with a huge number of new employees around the world, while remaining compliant with its high standards of data protection.

Comerica Incorporated, a financial services company headquartered in Dallas, offers three strategically aligned business segments for its customers: business banking, retail banking and wealth and institutional management. It is imperative that the online documentation system that backs up account and document withdrawals, deposits and other account activity works efficiently for a multistate network of more than 500 branch, lending and investment offices. At the heart of the company’s documentation process is the vendor-supplied Comerica Online Documents (COLD) application that archives, restores and retrieves these types of reports electronically. When this application was originally installed, the company started backing up a month’s worth of statements on a mainframe disk drive. Any request for account statements from over a month, however, was backed up on tape. To improve application response time, Comerica moved a year’s worth of account statements from tape to the mainframe disk drive. The company expected to see better response time, but that wasn’t the case. The system took the same amount of time to retrieve the account statements as it did before its IT team implemented the change.

A software company faced a challenge when the only employee who knew the intricate details of the company’s mainframe SCM solution—a homegrown Assembler application built around IBM Source Configuration and Library Management (SCLM) for z/OS—announced his retirement. The company's development occurs on the mainframe, requiring a team with decades of niche technical knowledge and skills. However, the software development team is small, and the loss of even one developer significantly impacts productivity. The company planned to hire a replacement for the retiring developer, but it quickly realized it would be unreasonable to train someone new to support an antiquated Assembler-SCLM tool that wasn’t core to the company’s business. The Assembler-SCLM tool impeded the acceleration of application development and delivery, a crippling disadvantage in a digital age where the pace of a “dinosaur” has long been superseded by industry-disrupting Agile “unicorns.”

Standard Bank, a major international financial services group based in South Africa, has been focusing on driving Agile, DevOps and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) to grow strategic digital, digitization, infrastructure and application software engineering capabilities. The core of Standard Bank’s portfolio, which includes corporate and private banking, sits on the mainframe, accounting for 80 percent of processing. As the system of record, it’s also the foundation for much of the bank’s frontend digital transformation. However, as Standard Bank’s digital transformation process matured, the mainframe had to be repositioned to mitigate risks between it and the rest of the Agile and DevOps framework supporting CI/CD. There were several cultural, process-related and tooling impediments to integrating the mainframe into that framework.

The company, a major communications industry service provider located in the United States, was struggling with Source Code Management (SCM). Their existing mainframe code management tools were outdated and could not keep up with the pace of change in today's world of agile development and rapid programming styles. The in-house developed SCM processes were inefficient and inconsistent, resulting in unnecessary errors. Deployments would slip out without all of the correct software changes and updates incorporated. Old and new versions of software were being deployed in error. There wasn’t a standardized way to implement changes. Procedures for version control and verification processes were not standardized. As a result, ‘clean-up’ of existing libraries was inconsistent, so that old versions of software would remain in ‘updated’ libraries. Changes could be made at any level making auditing, repeatability and traceability difficult.

The Global Health Service Company (GHSC) was managing an enterprise-wide DevOps initiative that included mainframe applications teams. The company wanted to execute COBOL source code security and syntax checking for every mainframe product release from its claims processing team. The company performs security and code syntax scans on their distributed and mobile apps and needed to duplicate that process for the mainframe teams. The company also needed the ability to manage mainframe and distributed code releases in a similar manner. This would provide quick feedback of issues to development and give management a common dashboard (SonarQube) for analyzing application code quality. These scans are critical for Continuous Integration practices for the enterprise DevOps effort.

Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. (CHT), a leading telecommunications company in Taiwan, was facing challenges with its existing billing system. The company, which provides services in fixed line, mobile communications, and data communications, has a subscriber base of 23 million. The billing system, based on an IBM mainframe, tracks billing for calls, collates monthly statistics relating to telephone charges, bill consolidation, bill delivery, clearing, bill collection, suspension, resumption and the stopping of phone services, refunds, arrears tracking and bad debt management. With an annual bill turnover of about NT$180 billion, it is Taiwan’s largest telecommunications billing system. However, the increasing competition in the industry and the launch of many new businesses and services, including ADSL, home broadband and MOD businesses and related services, were putting a strain on the billing system. The company needed to enhance its billing system to meet the growing needs of its value-added business development services.

IT Solutions Austria, the IT services branch of the Erste Group, a leading financial services company in Central and Eastern Europe, was tasked with maintaining the quality and cost efficiency of the Erste Group’s data center operations. In 2012, the company decided to outsource mainframe operations, which led to a re-evaluation of all its mainframe vendor relationships to see if it could reduce costs by further consolidating with other vendors. IT Solutions Austria was already using Compuware Strobe to analyze the behavior of its mainframe applications, and it valued the capabilities Strobe provided. However, the company considered migrating to a competing solution to save money.

Royal Bank of Canada’s Information Technology division needed to make sure its test data management software was efficient enough to handle the bank’s ever-expanding list of financial services for its customers, and that all new applications interfaced well with existing ones. The bank’s IT division needed to make more efficient use of its resources, while performing test data management projects more quickly and affordably. Faced with increasing customer expectations, the IT organization had to ensure that the bank’s growing list of financial service offerings would function properly and efficiently, and that its new applications would complement existing ones.

The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) faces the challenge of maintaining and improving its infrastructure, including nearly 6000 miles of paved roadway, bridges, and other surfaces, amidst increasing population and urbanization. The state's unique geographical and demographic characteristics, being the 9th most urban state in the U.S. and 12th largest by land area, add to the complexity of the task. UDOT also has to comply with federal legislation such as MAP-21 and the FAST Act, which have implications on how funds are allocated. The department needed a way to gain better insights into the performance of their assets to make more informed decisions and get higher value returns on their investments.

The Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) in Washington State Government is tasked with ensuring that the state's annual IT budget of over $900 million is spent in a way that advances the governor’s policy objectives. The projects must either improve revenue or reduce costs and have a direct and positive impact on citizens or public safety. In 2013, State agencies proposed 86 different projects that were either level 2 (medium risk/complexity) or level 3 (high risk/complexity) IT projects. The projects ranged from settling tax boundary disputes to tracking marijuana from seed to sale to Medicaid shopping plans. The challenge was to analyze these complex IT projects and provide a set of easy-to-read recommendations that even technophobes can understand. The legislature asked the OCIO to create a prioritized list that ranked the projects as high, medium, or low.

The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is a non-profit organization that serves as the nation’s Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN). Over the last 25 years, the number of organ transplants performed in the U.S. has doubled, but there are still people on the waiting list. The current system for matching donated organs to potential recipients includes a classification system with dozens or hundreds of characteristics for each organ. This system has hard boundaries on the different classifications, which can result in unfair allocation of organs. For example, someone who qualifies for an organ 251 miles away is lower on the priority list than those who are only 249 miles away, even if other attributes were comparatively more urgent.

ClickTale is a leader in Customer Experience Analytics (CEA), providing businesses with insights into their customers’ online behavior. Over 35,000 businesses rely on ClickTale for optimization of their website’s performance, improving usability and increasing conversion rates. As an analytics suite, ClickTale needs to generate a lot of reports, many of which require charts. The company was looking for an off-the-shelf charting component that would allow the development team to focus on the primary product, rather than reinventing the wheel. They needed a solution that could provide customers with meaningful reports of behavior inside their webpage by aggregating thousands of visitor sessions. These reports would help them in optimizing their website which ultimately translates into increased conversion rates.

Opteq International, a specialized developer of network management solutions, was in need of a real-time dashboarding product that could be easily integrated with their system, Opteq iQ. Opteq iQ is a standalone eServer or Appliance product with a Unix based server operating system and functional modules individually licensed. The company was looking for a solution that could provide true visibility of network traffic and the ability to manage it. They wanted a product that could convert monotonous data into exciting visuals, thereby enhancing the user experience.

Enterprise Software Solutions' BI Companion targets the Business Intelligence market, specifically focusing on ad-hoc drag-and-drop data analysis and report creation. The product fills the niche of creating reports over large amounts of data using multi-dimensional cubes, while providing a user-friendly non-technical interface and an extremely fast response time. However, due to the nature of the tool, some reports may generate a lot of data that is difficult to analyze and comprehend. Visualizing this data using charts and maps helps the end user with his/her analysis.

Spider Strategies' Corporate Management Suite (CMS) is a tool that allows large organizations to track key metrics, add corrective actions, and manage overall business strategy. The company needed a way to visualize data in the software, which was a critical requirement. They spent several days searching the web for different charting components they could use in their software.

SolarWorld, a manufacturer of solar power equipment, introduced the Suntrol system in 2010. This digital system automatically logs the performance of its solar modules using on-board firmware. One of the components of the Suntrol system is the Suntrol Portal, which allows owners of SolarWorld systems to analyze the output of their solar modules. The portal can be accessed through an iTunes app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. The Suntrol Portal allows users to analyze power output over varying time spans – from hours to months and even years. Hence, charting was absolutely necessary for them. Before obtaining FusionCharts, SolarWorld had used an open-source charting solution that rendered charts in the form of bitmaps. However, the company soon hit the ceiling with the non-interactive bitmap charts.

DeskAway is a web-based tool developed by Synage, a Mumbai-based startup, that enables teams to work collaboratively from anywhere in the world. It aims to solve common issues associated with collaborative working such as multiple file versions, lost files, and accountability issues. However, users of DeskAway wanted a visual representation of how their projects and tasks are shaping up. In order to develop this representation, the developers required an interactive charting component with support for Gantt chart. The challenge was to find a suitable charting component that could effectively portray project information and be compatible with their software.

SysAid is a developer and provider of management software solutions for the internal Help Desk and external Customer Service desk. It continually strives to simplify the dynamic challenges that service professionals face daily, by offering uncompromising performance and the latest in state-of-the-art software technology. SysAid's management tools are currently deployed in over 50,000 organizations and multiple industries across the globe. SysAid has a manager dashboard that brings together a visual realtime view of the state of the IT affairs in an organization. However, they needed a solution to make this data more visually appealing and interactive.

Practo, a web-based practice management software developed by Naabo, is used by healthcare clinics across India to manage their daily operations such as appointments, case histories, treatment records, and financial data. The software is currently used by over 500 doctors managing over 500,000 records daily. As an all-inclusive software solution for small healthcare units, Practo includes an inbuilt analytics module to help users analyze important financial and operational data. However, the company needed a way to present this data in a visually appealing and efficient manner.

360Cellutions, a leading provider of high-end solutions for the telecom industry, was looking to enhance its flagship offering, SYS-See Your Stats. This product is a KPI and Statistical analysis tool for cellular networks, designed to assist RF optimization engineers in their daily network improvement tasks. The company wanted to ensure that the product not only delivered faster results but also provided better, more insightful analysis. To achieve this, they needed a solution that could add value to the analysis while also offering speed and aesthetic appeal.

Greenway Medical Technologies, a provider of integrated EHR, interoperability solutions, and on-demand services for healthcare institutions, needed a way to visually represent lab results and clinical data. Their flagship application, PrimeSuite, integrates all clinical, financial, and administrative workflows into a single database to promote information sharing and ensure quick adoption. However, they needed a solution that could convert the monotonous data into exciting visuals, making it easier for users to analyze the data and quickly recognize any trends.

Rasmussen College, a private, career-focused college with 24 campuses across six states and online, wanted to understand the importance of tuition costs to prospective students and if that information was a factor in their higher education selection process. They had created a tuition cost estimator for prospective students to use on their site, but there was no way to track engagement. This lack of knowledge regarding a prospective student’s use of the tuition estimator tool limited the ability of Rasmussen College to accurately position the value of an investment in a college education. They wanted to increase new student enrollment inquiries, determine price sensitivity across schools of study, and increase task completion for prospective students seeking tuition information.

Gerber Life Insurance, a subsidiary of Nestlé, wanted to gain better insight into the relative performance of different marketing channels throughout the customer journey. They understood the last-click attribution of display in policy generation, but they wanted to better understand the overall role display played in the conversion funnel for all marketing channels. They also knew that potential customers who were viewing their ads were likely visiting the website on direct, organic or paid search channels. However, they didn’t have a way to explicitly see and measure such use cases. Because of that inability to measure the post-view impact of display on other channels, they were unable to measure their investment in that channel in an informed manner.

Sellpoints, an expert in online selling, wanted to help one of its global clients make informed marketing decisions and drive performance improvements. The agency aimed to obtain a more accurate understanding of users’ paths to conversion. They realized that attributing all the credit for a sale to the final click along the conversion path doesn't provide a true reflection of reality. Conversion paths are complicated; a user may begin with a search using generic terms, see and click on a display ad, perform another search later using narrower branded keywords, click on a paid search ad and eventually convert after a wide variety of online actions. A last-click analysis ignores all of these actions except the final one.

AccuWeather, the world’s largest weather media company, was facing a challenge in tracking the effectiveness of its various customer touchpoints. The company provides real-time weather information through its website, mobile apps, and custom email services. However, it was struggling to collect data from each of these touchpoints for a comprehensive analysis. The company wanted to evaluate how many of its weather forecast email alerts were being opened and attribute credit to campaigns that drove users to app store pages. Additionally, some users were interacting with AccuWeather’s content on devices that did not support JavaScript, requiring a different solution. The team wanted to collect this new data without compromising the company’s fast and simple user experience.

AccuWeather, a company that provides real-time weather news and information to more than a billion people worldwide, wanted to provide additional value to advertisers and boost ad revenue on its website. The team wanted to better understand the weather needs of visitors so that they could match them with more specific and relevant messages from ad partners. However, before linking their DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) account with Google Analytics 360, AccuWeather couldn’t easily see the intersection of this data or how the behavior of various website visitors affected its revenue.

Air Show Buzz (ASB) is a media company dedicated to the 'Aerotainment' or entertainment and news in the aviation and air show industry. They needed to measure video views, online sales, the usage of a downloaded application, and the impact of social media. They also wanted to correlate offline events and activities to mobile website usage and branded merchandise sales. However, with their existing implementation of Coremetrics, ASB was unable to meet their measurement needs. None of this was included in their Coremetrics data, and cost was a prohibitive factor to development as Coremetrics incurs fees for using the platform, and incremental fees based on the number of page views served. This expense limited ASB’s investment in talent to interpret reports or to implement customizations needed to capture data for decision making.

Amari Hotels, a member of the Onyx Hospitality Group, was seeking to gain a better understanding of how its different digital marketing channels interacted with each other to influence sales. The company was particularly interested in understanding how their email marketing campaigns influenced sales further down the line and how a visitor's interaction with their organic search results would affect their interaction with paid search ads in the future. The company was struggling to find answers to these questions, which were crucial for managing their digital channels effectively.

Ariat, a leading equestrian footwear and apparel brand in the United States, was looking to optimize the performance of its digital marketing channels, increase the effectiveness of its homepage promotions, measure the impact of interactive website features, and understand the value of all conversions, beyond just e-commerce orders. In 2010, Ariat invested heavily in digital by creating a powerful new website. To justify the cost and report a return on investment, the new website required a comprehensive web analytics and reporting program. Beyond just evaluating key performance indicators (KPIs) for e-commerce, such as revenue and conversion rate, Ariat needed to measure the effectiveness of their new merchandising and promotional features, and also the effectiveness of various digital marketing channels.