Turning analysis into decisions - unleashing profitability

Bank of Ireland and the First Citizens Bank were not – they wanted a clear, comprehensive view of their bank’s data, to give them cutting-edge insight that drives profitability.

Bank of Ireland Group is a major provider of diversified financial services in the Republic of Ireland, as well as the UK and the rest of the world. The organization was established in 1783 by Royal Charter and currently has 16,000 employees in eight countries worldwide. It is the largest Irish bank by total assets and the highest rated, Irish-listed financial institution.

Like many banks, Bank of Ireland’s primary goal is understanding what drives customer profitability.

To do this, executives began looking for ways to aggregate data across multiple touch points, including deposits, retail loans, mortgages and credit cards. Bank of Ireland needed an application with a rapid return on investment, one that could offer a clear picture of the key drivers influencing customer value. Bank executives evaluated their scenario from all sides, settling on a solution that offered unprecedented visibility.

A burgeoning Irish economy, increasingly sophisticated customers, and an influx of competitors from abroad had created a much more competitive market for Bank of Ireland. To meet the challenge, the bank moved from ‘a one size fits all’ array of product and service offerings to a more focused and customer-driven approach. A customer focus called for deeper insight, beyond traditional branch level measurement and reporting. But this level of granularity presented a challenge. “We wanted to capture information at the customer account level, because not all customers are the same and you have to deal with each differently,” says Eugene McCarthy, Head of Profitability Measurement in the Bank’s Retail Division. “But the problem became immediately apparent. We had masses and masses of customer data, but no tools to exploit it. We could run some queries off it, we could produce a couple of standard reports per month, but there were a lot of questions we couldn’t answer.”

Read the conclusion to this success story at http://www.cognos.com/fs_profitability/

Founded in 1898 and headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., First Citizens Bank operates 337 branches in more than 200 cities and towns in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Maryland. The bank’s parent company, First Citizens BancShares has more than $14 billion in assets. As one of the largest financial services companies in the US serving a wide variety of clients, from small businesses to professional services and retail, fast access to accurate information is critical.

With a focus on fast, efficient service, and a growing client base, First Citizens associates were increasingly challenged when it came to reporting on, or simply accessing, customer information. Historically report creation was complex. As bank associates and internal teams had requirements for multiple report types, this meant several proprietary reporting solutions, resulting in a complex, multi-tool IT environment. For First Citizens, an easily accessible information management solution with a simple-to-master interface had become a critical requirement.

Read the conclusion to this success story at http://www.cognos.com/fs_profitability/

How can you drive profitability planning and report on product and customer level?

Traditional banking solutions like ERP, branch teller and platform systems, or spreadsheets are typically not designed to handle sophisticated, branch network-wide planning, modeling and budgeting.

An extra value is developed with the Branch Performance Blueprint to help retail banks perform detailed top-down and branch-up revenue and expense planning to ensure organization-wide alignment with strategic objectives. The solution extends the critical planning process beyond the finance department to the branch network, enabling managers to drive profitability planning, analysis and reporting at the product and customer segment levels.

Anchored Cognos 8 BI and planning and based on banking industry best practices, the Branch Performance Blueprint allows bank managers to benefit from:

• Driver-based planning for more granular management of key revenue and expense lines.
• Flexible initiative planning to better mobilize new product introductions, marketing campaigns and other branch-level initiatives.
• Position-level branch staff planning for strong headcount expenditure control.
• Break-back functionality to automatically pro-rate revenues, margins or costs to meet goals.
• ‘What-if’ modelling and analysis to best determine the impact of decisions using multiple scenarios.
• Intuitive dashboards to monitor and analyze performance indicators at various levels.
• Integrated workflow capabilities to facilitate enterprise collaboration and accountability.

Performance Blueprints are pre-defined data, process, and policy model based on proven best practices in enterprise planning, and financial management and control. For in-depth information see http://www.cognos.com/innovationcenter/blueprint_industry.html