Business Intelligence Companies & Consultants in Appleton, WI

NRI is a business and technology consultancy that operates under the legal name Core BTS, Inc. It was formed when three firms combined: NRI America, which was the first overseas office of Japan's Nomura Research Institute; Core BTS, a digital transformation and technology provider; and NRI ITSA, an enterprise IT and consulting company.

For buyers comparing business intelligence partners, NRI is a large firm that offers analytics as one part of a wider range of strategy, engineering, security and support services. Clients can bring one firm in to work on their data, their infrastructure and the change management a project needs.

Data, analytics and AI capabilities

NRI's BI work sits in its Intelligent Data and AI practice. That practice has three layers: building the data foundation, analyzing the data, and putting AI into use. At the foundation stage, consultants design data architectures around a client's goals, with attention to data quality, access and security, so that reporting and machine learning can run on dependable information. On top of that foundation, NRI offers forecasting and interactive dashboards so decision-makers can spot trends without digging through raw tables.

• Data strategy and roadmaps tied to business goals
• Data platform work that keeps information flowing between systems in near real time
• Governance frameworks covering accuracy, security and compliance
• Predictive analytics using statistical modeling and machine learning
• Interactive data visualization and dashboards
• AI roadmaps, embedded AI in existing applications, and lifecycle oversight including model monitoring, bias mitigation and MLOps

Products and technology partners

NRI has packaged some of its data work into named offerings. Data Insights is built on platforms such as Microsoft Fabric and Databricks, so teams can work from a single shared copy of their data across different analytics engines and languages.

CoreConversations lets employees ask questions of company data in plain language and get answers from AI, and it connects securely to enterprise sources. The firm also mentions CoreInsights, a Fabric-based offering.

Its main alliances are with Microsoft, Cisco, Pure Storage (now called Everpure) and Databricks, and it also lists vendors such as Azure, Citrix, Cohesity, NetApp, Rubrik, Varonis, Veeam and VMware.

How they engage

Engagements follow three stages: Strategize and Advise, Build and Transform, and Protect and Manage. This means a client can start with research and planning, go on to implementation, and then move to ongoing operations. NRI considers security from the first day of every project and builds change management into its work to help users adopt new tools.

Its managed services are presented as a collaborative partnership aimed at continuous improvement rather than standard outsourcing. Published case studies include AI-driven data work for a shipping company, an AI deployment with Microsoft that sped up support responses for a tax professionals' association, and help desk improvements for a national bank.

Industries, scale and locations

NRI works with clients in automotive, education, finance, gaming and hospitality, government, healthcare and manufacturing. The company reports about 650 practitioners, more than 1,300 clients and over 50 years in business, and it shows ISO 27001 certification. Its headquarters is in Indianapolis, with executive offices in New York.

In Wisconsin it has offices in Appleton and Madison, and it also has sites in Ohio, Texas, northern Indiana, Pennsylvania and the Washington, DC area. Clients there also get access to the global Nomura Research Institute network.