PeopleAnswers Selects Birst and Cervello for HR Analytics to Increase Clients' ROI

Birst's On-Demand BI Solution to Provide Easy Access to More Detailed Human Resources-Related Metrics


BOSTON, MA and SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - September 7, 2010) -  Cervello, a leading business intelligence (BI) consultancy, and Birst, a leading provider of on-demand solutions for BI and analytics, today announced that PeopleAnswers has selected Birst to provide its clients with easier access to more detailed Human Resources (HR)-related metrics. Working together to implement the new solution, Cervello and Birst will help PeopleAnswers, a technology company providing online pre-employment assessment services, increase its clients' return on investment (ROI).

"We're leveraging Birst's flexible solution and Cervello's design and implementation expertise to help our clients gain greater insight into the effectiveness of their hiring process and how PeopleAnswers impacts their bottom line performance," said Ira Grossman, Vice President of Operations, PeopleAnswers. "With the information provided by Birst, our clients will be able to better manage the investment they are making in employee selection and development and optimize their use of HR resources, further increasing the return on their investment in our services."

PeopleAnswers' web-based assessment tool helps companies hire top performers and manage and develop existing talent. Dashboards included in the tool report key information such as employee performance and turnover, time to complete a new hire, and the quality of candidates sourced by a specific recruiter or employment website. With this data, clients can measure how much they've invested in each new hire and their return on that investment, as well as the impact of the recommendations made by PeopleAnswers. Birst will replace PeopleAnswers' existing dashboards, providing the company's clients with the ability to quickly and easily access more detailed information. Cervello and Birst will work together to embed Birst's capabilities within PeopleAnswers' solution.

With an expanding customer base that includes clients processing up to hundreds of thousands of job candidates in a month, PeopleAnswers realized it needed to upgrade its existing, static dashboards with an easy-to-use and highly scalable BI solution. The new solution had to include dynamic dashboards and graphs that provide high-level information, as well as the ability to drill down to view additional detail. In conducting its search, PeopleAnswers relied heavily on the expertise of Cervello, a provider of system integration services, managed services, and application solutions for the BI and corporate performance management (CPM) market. Based on Cervello's recommendation and its own careful evaluation of a number of hosted and non-hosted BI solutions, PeopleAnswers selected Birst because it met all of the company's requirements and its affordable, hosted solution could be quickly implemented with reasonable long-term maintenance and support costs. Birst's solution was also the most intuitive and visually appealing. "Birst was the only solution that looked like something we would put in front of our clients," said Grossman.

"As we worked with PeopleAnswers to establish their requirements for a new BI solution, the team quickly determined that Birst would meet and exceed them," said Scot MacGillivray, co-CEO, Cervello. "Birst combines the advantages of an on-demand solution that is low cost and easy to implement, with a complete BI suite delivering the breadth and flexibility companies need to access the right information at the right time, and in the right format."

"By partnering with Cervello, we're merging their world-class expertise in BI solution design, configuration, and implementation with all the advantages of Birst," said Brad Peters, CEO of Birst. "It's an alliance built to provide the guidance and technology companies need to help their employees make better, faster decisions that generate real results."

About PeopleAnswers
PeopleAnswers provides next-generation web-based hiring assessments to help maximize the quality of every hire, reduce turnover, and streamline the selection process. Clients include HSBC, Macy's, Tenet Healthcare, Panera Bread Company, Saks Fifth Avenue, The Venetian Hotel, and Expedia. For more information, visit www.PeopleAnswers.com.

About Cervello
Cervello was founded with a mission to combine expertise in BI and CPM for the Fortune 500 with the affordability of Software-as-a-Service to make world-class BI and CPM solutions available to the mid-market. Cervello provides these solutions to its clients via BI and CPM systems integration, managed services, and joint venture applications. For more information, visit www.MyCervello.com.

About Birst
Birst™ is the leading provider of on-demand business intelligence solutions. Birst brings the benefits of fact-based decision-making to a much broader audience by making it affordable, fast, and easy to use. Birst is designed to support users of all sizes -- from individuals to groups and entire companies, so that everyone can benefit from greater insight into their business.

More information is available at www.Birst.com

Contact Information:

For more information, contact:
Barbara Lewis
Birst

(415) 644-5400