FICO has opened entries into its seventh annual awards, which aim to honour organisations that have achieved outstanding results using analytics and decision management solutions from FICO.

The awards shine a spotlight on business leaders who are driving their business forward and improving the customer experience using decision automation, optimisation, predictive analytics, AI and machine learning.

In 2016, South Africa’s leading health insurance group, Medscheme was awarded the FICO Decisions Award for Fraud Control based on its achievements in introducing the country’s first-ever analytics based solution for healthcare.

Having begun the project in 2015 in partnership with FICO, Medscheme’s objective was to build a national consortium for the management of healthcare claims fraud, waste and abuse. The ultimate goal is to reduce costs and therefore improve affordability of healthcare for its customers.

The Medscheme project combined FICO’s Payment Integrity Platform, which uses self-learning analytic models to detect healthcare claims fraud, waste and abuse, with Medscheme’s industry-leading medical aid administration platforms and experience. At the time of entering the 2016 FICO Decisions Awards, Medscheme had already identified 3% of healthcare insurance claims received from its providers to be irregular.

Nominations for the 2018 FICO Decisions Awards are due November 14, and winners will be announced in December.

The awards will be presented in seven categories: AI and Machine Learning, Customer Onboarding and Management, Debt Management, Decision Management, Fraud Control, Financial Inclusion and Regulatory Compliance.

Winners will receive recognition at FICO World, which will be held in November 2019. Winning implementations will be featured in conference activities, and two representatives of each winning company will receive complimentary conference passes.

“We witness some incredible innovation while working with clients to solve their complex business problems,” says Wayne Huyard, senior vice-president at FICO for sales, marketing and services. “These companies and their enterprising individuals are champions of business and analytics heroes. These awards shine a spotlight on some of the biggest success stories from all over the world.”

Judges for the 2018 FICO Decisions Awards include industry experts and practitioners who will evaluate nominations based upon measurable improvement in key metrics; demonstrated use of best practices; project scale, depth and breadth; and innovative uses of technology.