Business Analytics for Financial Services

COMPANY:   Global insurance and financial services company
HEADQUARTERS:   Northeast U.S.
EMPLOYEES: 50,000

The Benefits:

• 3-fold more frequent reporting (monthly vs. quarterly)
• 75% reduction in time required to produce reports
• 90% fewer people involved in report production, enhancing productivity
• Improved accuracy of reports by reducing potential for human error
• Able to understand data better and faster, enhancing decision-making

The Business Challenge:

For years, this financial service company’s global compliance group struggled to manually collect data from multiple sources such as Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, and other report summaries. The lengthy compliance reports they needed to generate took weeks to compile, and with so many manual steps involved, accuracy was less than optimal; often, reports had to be re-run due to errors. The customer needed an end-to-end business analytics solution that would automatically collect and analyze a wide range of compliance metrics.

The Solution:

The company engaged Mainline to implement IBM Business Analytics and IBM DB2 for AIX data server to automatically collect data from source systems into a data mart and analyze compliance metrics. Mainline leveraged its expertise with the IBM Business Analytics Software Development Kit and provided an annotations manager tool to add more context into reports and tie comments back to other data elements-for example, adding dynamic notes to explain the reasons behind skewed or outlier data during a certain quarter. The solution eliminated the need to copy charts into Word and add associated verbiage.

The Result:

Mainline created a central data warehouse for all global compliance metrics with 14 sub-reports acting as one, reducing the time needed to collect data and product reports from weeks to days. Notes and charts can be produced at the same time as the report is executed. Users can choose which reports execute and change the chart structure on the fly to subjectively focus on relevant data points. They can understand data better and with much less effort. Role-based security in IBM Business Analytics allows business leaders to view only the data they are allowed to see. Mainline is now a trusted partner, and has been tasked with establishing an Analytics Center of Excellence.

COMPANY:   Midsize investment management firm
HEADQUARTERS:   Northeast U.S.
EMPLOYEES: 17,000

The Benefits:

• 50% improvement in operational efficiency for generating client statements
• Created a highly customizable, user-friendly reporting environment
• Reduced demands on IT, enabling developers to focus on other projects
• Improved data accuracy
• Richer data helps customers understand how investments are performing

The Business Challenge:

The reporting tool that an investment firm used for generating client statements was not meeting business requirements. The process of generating statements was complex, since data was based not only on the asset types that people owned, but also on variables that account executives had set up governing what they wanted their customers to see. In order to make the reports “pixel perfect” in terms of layout and positioning, developers from the IT staff had to be involved, taking time away from other internal projects.

The Solution:

Mainline provided a configuration utility to create a bridge between the legacy interface and IBM Business Analytics, solving the systems integration challenge. Separate reports have to come together and look like a unified document that has its own table of contents, and this required customization of IBM Business Analytics. The integration was an iterative process, developing and defining in tandem as the customer’s requirements changed. Mainline’s agility allowed IT to deliver exactly what marketing, client services, and other stakeholders wanted.

The Result:

The customer now has enhanced functionality and flexibility in producing client statements. Investment portfolio statements can be generated much faster and contain more graphical depictions and footnoting than before, making them easier for customers to interpret. Account executives can add their own personalized annotations for customers, strengthening relationships. And because client statement generation is now entirely user driven, IT no longer needs to be involved. With richer data and reporting comes the potential for increased sales. The customer has increased its usage of IBM Business Analytics and is now developing a self-service reporting portal that will allow clients to generate reports online at any time.