Margin test

It was only a few months ago when millennials officially surpassed baby boomers to become the largest living generation. Since millennials are so numerous, it stands to reason, that they could also become the most prevalent population of small business owners in the U.S. As a matter of fact, everyday there are hundreds of new start-ups being created by this younger demographic. Clearly, the millennial generation is gravitating toward entrepreneurship, but what do we really know about this segment of the population? While we know they are deeply rooted in technology, what industries are they most likely to enter? Where are millennials more apt to establish their companies? How do they handle credit? In order to put a face to the average millennial business owner, Experian recently conducted an analysis exploring the demographic and its credit characteristics. Interestingly, we found correlations between their education level and the industries in which they were most likely to start a business. Interestingly, the analysis showed millennial business owners had the highest percentage of those without a high school diploma and subsequently established companies in industries that typically do not require a college degree. For example, the top three industries for millennials include business services, building cleaning and maintenance and general contractors. From a geographic perspective, we found more than 68 percent of millennials establish businesses primarily in three states, including California, Texas and Florida. While the number may seem a bit high, it makes sense considering one of the states is a hub for technology, and the other two do not have state income tax. We also found millennial business owners have the lowest commercial* and consumer credit scores at 32 and 628, respectively. However, despite their low scores, millennials show to be the most credit active generation. More than 17 percent of millennials have opened a commercial account within past 24 months. While they have a brief credit profile, which can impact their credit score, millennials seem to understand the importance of building credit by opening new accounts. By putting a face to the name, so to speak, creditors and suppliers will have a better understanding of what drives the millennial business owner. These insights will enable them to better market to this growing segment of entrepreneurs, as well as position them to service these young business owners and uncover their own growth opportunities. Millennials are the future, and the more we understand how to help them succeed, the better off our economy and society will be. *Based on a scale of 1 to 100 (with 100 being least risky); predicts the likelihood of severe delinquency (more than 91 days past due) within the next 12 months  

The appetite and need for data within businesses is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. Organizations are viewing data as a strategic asset and using analytical insights for everything from key business decisions, to the customer experience and more. However, the methods for managing first-party data and ensuring it’s accuracy have not kept pace with the growing data demand. The majority of businesses today are still relying on siloed, departmental strategies for data management that have little data governance or consistency in terms of people, processes, and technology. This very clear gap between data usage and data trust has been realized. Organizations are starting to put better structures in place and assign owners to data. In some businesses, especially in highly regulated industries, a chief data officer (CDO) position has been created. The CDO is viewed as a trusted advisory and a custodian of data. That individual is responsible for evangelizing data usage within the business and ensuring that individuals buy-in to information management practices. But a C-level focus on data has only occurred in a select number of organizations. For the thousands of other organizations who have data and need to improve data trust, who do they turn to today? In many instances, we are finding that the CIO is taking ownership of data management in a bigger way. In fact, according to a recent Experian Data Quality study of 250 CIOs from large organizations, 52 percent stated they have become increasingly responsible for data management in the last 12 months. The main responsibilities for the CIO around data management are: Improving the bottom line through lowering the cost of compliance Providing platforms and technologies to support analytics Measuring and managing data value and risk These executives are adding data management to an already busy work-load. Most CIOs report working longer hours and increased personal stress levels in the last year. However, they are seeing increases in their budgets, allowing them to hire additional help and invest in new technology. While the CIO is perfectly capable of handling the weight of data management with the right team around them in place, there are a few pitfalls that have occurred in the past that need to be avoided when modernizing any data management strategy. Data management isn’t just about technology There needs to be a large investment in people and processes to make sure there is organizational buy-in around data quality. Whenever there are policy changes that employees do not like, they will inevitably find a work around. With data management it is no different. Data owners need to evangelize data and make people want to maintain and use quality information. Data should not just be controlled and manipulated by IT While a central data stakeholder should provide consistent data governance and management across the organization, they should also an empowerment of departments and individual users. A large problem with data today is it is difficult to access. Sometimes departments will have to make requests with IT in order to have reports generated for analytics and wait weeks while their request becomes out of date. Today, data owners need to think about business users. How can they make data governed, accurate and accessible while allowing individual departments to manipulate data themselves for specific purposes? Don’t think about big data, think about insight We all have talked a lot about big data over the last few years. But, at the end of the day it is just data. It doesn’t matter how much data we have, we ultimately need to be able to access and manipulate that data for analytical purposes. When you are looking at technology, don’t just think about Hadoop clusters and data lakes; think about what you need to build models and access analytics in real-time. One of the biggest gaps right now for organizations is central ownership of data. A few organizations are looking to answer need by creating a CDO role. However, before this role becomes main stream, much of the work will fall to an already overloaded CIO. They need to maximize their time around data management and ensure that information is fit-for-purpose. Consider the pitfalls above and be sure to hire a great team of data professionals. To learn more about how data is affecting CIOs, download our research report, The role of the CIO in data management.

For those of you attending the Money 20/20 show in Las Vegas next week, billed as the largest global event focused on payments and financial services innovation, the topic of millennials will be top of mind. Why? Because the millenials are 75 million strong, even surpassing the Baby Boomers, and the financial services industry knows that future success depends on learning what matters to millennials and building products and services around those desires. This is true for both consumer lending and small business lending for budding entrepreneurs. On Oct. 26 at 11:10, Michele Raneri, Experian’s VP of analytics and authority on millennial credit trends will present “What’s Trending in Lending”. The nutshell version of this presentation is that millenials use credit very differently than any other population segment, even if you compare different population segments (Generation X for example) when they were the same age as millennials now. In addition, Michele will discuss the present and future look of small business owners in this population segment. A SlideShare of the presentation will be posted here next week so you all can see the details. Aside from the credit habits of millenials, what else have we learned? Millenials have different expectations for financial services providers. This includes the authenticity of brands, the expectation for financial education, technology of course, and importantly, brands that connect to a larger purpose. Financial services organizations that develop and innovate based on the millennial wish list can capture the hearts of this population and build long lasting loyalty. If you just can’t get enough on this topic, a webinar, hosted by Michele Raneri, titled "Millennial Credit: The Insights You’ve Been Missing" is on Nov. 10.

I am part of a community that completely energizes me, makes me believe that there are good people in the world and that makes me want to be better. Over the course of four days in September, my co-workers and I were transported into the world of self-proclaimed “money media nerds” at FinCon, the Financial Influencers conference, where people share thoughts, best practices and update one another on the latest trends. FinCon is THE annual event for the financial media community. What FinCon is really about is trying to help people and each other. Whether it’s helping someone understand how to invest, how to plan for retirement, or in Experian’s case, help others understand and learn more about credit and financial empowerment, we are all a part of this education ecosystem.  Of course, none of us attending FinCon do this alone. We have our co-workers, our peers and our mentors that help guide us and work alongside with us to work toward a common goal. Personally, I love that the company I work for cares about financial education, cares about consumers and empowers our team to go forth and make those long-lasting connections at FinCon. The energy at FinCon is contagious and you tend to build up a kind of super-human strength that gives you the ability to go without sleep indefinitely and miraculously have meaningful, educational conversations even though your body is on auto-pilot. It’s been a few weeks — I’m caught up on sleep, my feet have healed from the blisters and I’m not on a sugar high from eating a dozen Ally white chocolate covered Oreos — so I thought it would be a good time to give you my top three reasons why I think this year’s FinCon was so fantastic and why we want to do it again and again: The Expo hall rocks: Everyone can learn something from someone else and FinCon is no exception. This place is filled with some very smart people and smart companies. The Expo hall is a great investment for a company that is interested in sharing tools, services and thoughts with the FinCon attendees and as a company. We find a lot of value in setting up a home base for a few days at the conference and it gives people a place to find us. This year’s expo hall was full of energy (and great swag like yoga mats, selfie sticks and cocktail flavored jelly beans to name a few) and we at Experian found it to be the perfect backdrop for recording podcasts with a large number of FinCon experts. We loved helping these bloggers/writers share and deliver their unique content to an even broader audience. I Heart inspiration: You don’t have to look far at FinCon for inspiration. The keynotes, the sessions and even just hallway conversations can spark an idea, create a new passion or give someone the confidence they need to try something new. One guy was even inspired to wear money-print pants. For real. Anyway, the keynotes moved people. Carl Richards reminded me why I love to do what I do and motivated me to be better at it. Grant Baldwin made a huge impact on people by discussing balance for a successful life and how just saying no isn’t as hard as you think. One source of my personal inspiration at FinCon was watching our Social Media Guru, Mike Delgado, constantly drive content via Periscope with our Director of Public Education. They were ”Scoping” from sun up to sun down and it caught on like wildfire. By the end of the conference, everyone was feeling the love for Periscope and viewers were sending hearts in droves. This kind of sharing and helping people, as well as one another, happens so organically at FinCon. Winning isn’t all that matters, but it sure feels good: Part of the FinCon tradition is the Plutus Awards, which is an annual awards ceremony that celebrates the best in personal finance. It was amazing to see so many bloggers recognized for their hustle and run up on the stage to accept their awards. We also couldn’t be happier that Experian was honored with a Plutus Award for Best Use of Social Media by a Brand (for the second year in a row—whoop whoop)! The nomination means so much to Experian as a company, and to be chosen as the award winner is a true honor for us. This is just a small snapshot of what FinCon is every year. There’s so much more. We’re already thinking about next year’s conference in San Diego and are excited to start planning and connecting with our FinCon family. If you want to know more about how to connect with us and join in our weekly conversations with consumers, see the links below: Join our #CreditChat, hosted by @Experian_US on Twitter and Blab.im with financial experts and consumers every Wednesday at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Participate in our daily #CreditScope hosted by @Experian_US on Periscope Mon-Fri. Tune in to our podcasts on SoundCloud and iHeart radio. Visit Experian’s help site for answers to common questions, advice and education about consumer credit Ask credit questions on Experian’s Facebook page at https://facebook.com/ExperianUS and Experian’s Credit Education Blog.  

On September 28 in New York City, Experian and Cloudera Cares hosted a panel discussion about how Big Data can be used in a variety of ways as a force of good.  The panel included Adam Fingersh, Senior Vice President, Products and Marketing for Experian, Mike Olson, Co-founder, CSO and Chairman of the Board at Cloudera; Board Member at DataKind, Dr. Richard Bonneau, Associate Professor of Biology, Computer Science and Faculty Director of Bioinformatics, New York University; Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Vlad Dubovskiy, Data Scientist, DonorsChoose.org.   As part of the discussion, the panelists shared their thoughts about how data is being used to improve the quality of life for people around the world. During the discussion, Fingersh pointed to the impact of Data for Good in the Healthcare space.  Highlighting how Experian’s data and technology guides hospitals, physicians and patients step by step through an increasingly complex healthcare process. Specifically, this enables health institutions to validate their patients’ identifications and help determine payment plans that can fit into a patient’s budget. To learn more about what was discussed at the event see the article from the Hub.