A Pendulum that cannot swing (wildly)?

This weekend at a social event, i happened to meet a customer of mine by accident. Turns out that we have common friends. He uses our TIBCO Spotfire analytics product to make very interesting business decisions around financial products that he "creates".

Manufacture Financial Products - Finely tuned Pendulum
He has a very interesting job in that he has to select and structure the financial products that his organization sells in the marketplace.

TIBCO Spotfire helps him in finding the right product configuration that is sufficiently attractive to a prospective buyer while minimizing the risk  and and provide a baseline level of returns to organization - So he can make his bonus.

In my line work, I am only successful, when I worry more about my customer’s bonus, than my own bonus.  

Why is his job interesting ? He cannot be too greedy OR take on too much risk. His job is like a pendulum that cannot swing too wildly. And for that he needs some really advanced analytic models.

We started talking about how he is using TIBCO Spotfire and the analytic models he has built to do his job. I cannot divulge the confidential details - however it was amazing to see how many different data sets he had to use in conjunction to make the right financial product configuration. In his line of work, every financial product he sells is unique.  The models that he were describing were very complex. 

What he liked about TIBCO Spotfire was that it not only allowed him visualize and understand all kinds of datasets, but more importantly allowed him to simulate, test and make very important financial decision - a finely tuned financial product.

This is why I love my work - even a boring social party that my wife dragged me to became so interesting. The only thing I was missing at the party was a whiteboard.

At the upcoming TIBCO Now conference (Las Vegas, May) , you will get to hear many interesting use cases like these and I promise you we will have plenty of whiteboards.