CBE Group Improves Response Time, Performance, Collection Revenue with SAS

CBE Group (CBE) is boosting its collections results by new investments in SAS® Analytics. Fueled by increased performance and efficiency tied to its 2011 SAS analytics purchase, debt collection industry leader CBE will expand its SAS usage to segment accounts, calibrate scores more frequently and increase response times through continuous performance updates.

“We selected SAS because of its ability to improve the management and manipulation of large amounts of data very efficiently,” said Chad Benson, COO at CBE. “The new SAS solutions will provide our team with an agile approach to problem solving, process enhancement, data analysis and facilitating critical business information faster.”

CBE provides collections solutions to client organizations across seven industries: health care, utilities, satellite, telecommunications, financial services, education and government. The agency sought a cost-effective strategy to lower costs for clients to collect payments. Using SAS® Enterprise BI Server, SAS® Data Integration Server, SAS® Financial Management and SAS® Model Manager on top of its existing SAS solutions, SAS Analytics Pro and SAS® Enterprise MinerTM, CBE will improve analytical data management and better scoring of delinquent accounts to improve collections and report more accurate results. CBE expects increased profitability by reducing collection costs, as well as an increase in its ability to respond quickly and affect short term portfolio performance.

SAS Enterprise BI Server will help CBE display real-time business metrics for monitoring and effecting change quickly. CBE will use SAS Model Manager to tackle registration, testing, deployment and performance monitoring of models.

Advanced use of SAS enables CBE to deliver both direct and indirect benefits to clients. “We expect the new SAS platform we are implementing to help us add more value to current and future client partnerships,” said Benson.

For example, clients use CBE’s Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) litigation analyses to mitigate risk. With the power of SAS, CBE offers this information monthly after just 15 minutes of analysis; the process formerly took three days. For clients, this aids brand protection by providing timely statistics on lawsuits categorized by attorney, state and defendant.

One major client estimated it collected an additional $265,340 after CBE’s advanced scoring model improved its competitive scorecard. Previously, it performed at an average of 97.25% of best over six months. After implementing the model, CBE performance is consistently 100% of best.

Since SAS allows CBE to be more efficient, it is able to indirectly help its clients through improved performance. Analysts have doubled and tripled their model-building pace, and large-data extraction from multiple sources now takes minutes instead of hours. Analytical efficiencies help CBE make decisions with less reaction time, with better information and at a faster pace – resulting in increased performance for clients.

“Our SAS based programs have enabled me to compile a large volume of data in a short time, to analyze performance over time and to evaluate trends,” said Shane Roberts, Corporate Analyst at CBE. “This methodology has saved me hours of compilation time and IT resources.”

“I no longer need a month to build a model. I can build it in one or two weeks,” said James Zheng, Statistical Analyst at CBE.

CBE has been in the accounts receivable management business since 1933 and currently employs nearly 1,000 people in four locations nationwide. Its corporate headquarters is located in Cedar Falls, Iowa, with additional facilities in Waterloo, Iowa, West Des Moines, Iowa and Overland Park, Kansas. CBE was named one of the best places to work in the Waterloo/Cedar Falls metropolitan area the last eight years. CBE represents many of the nation’s most renowned and respected organizations. CBE serves a variety of industries including health care, utilities, satellite, telecommunications, financial services, education and government. For more information, visit www.cbegroup.com.

SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through innovative solutions, SAS helps customers at more than 60,000 sites improve performance and deliver value by making better decisions faster.