Card Services Turns Up Trumps with Strategic Reporting Solution
dynaSight saves Bank of America thousands in its Card Services division.

(Wayne, PA ) Bank of America is one of the world’s leading financial services companies serving the banking public with 14,400 domestic and 30 international offices. Its Card Services division is charged with the task of tracking up to 200 direct and co-branded card programs on a continual basis. One of the key functions of this division is to analyze the success or failure of hundreds of promotional card campaigns, which involves the tracking of financial and even behavioral data of millions of customers. By implementing arcplan dynaSight’s Web-based solution, the group automated and simplified reporting and decision-making processes, thereby directly contributing $450,000 in revenue and saving $21,000 in expenses annually.

In 2002, Bank of America adopted the Six Sigma management philosophy, which emphasizes setting extremely high objectives. The Credit Card Services division strives for perfection in measuring metrics such as region, pricing and spending habits to match the right card to the right customer with the appropriate direct mail campaigns. On its path to better business intelligence, Credit Card Services followed the well-trodden path of analytic analysis, moving from Excel to OLAP reporting by installing Hyperion Essbase. Analysts, however, were still pulling data into two-dimensional spreadsheets and sometimes efforts were duplicated.

Mike Pepperman, vice president of MIS/OLAP at Bank of America, and his internal business partners concluded that their current reporting processes would not enable them to meet future business requirements efficiently. Their objective was to reduce reporting and analysis cycle time by automating the reporting processes. Pepperman had prior exposure to arcplan dynaSight and believed its flexible development environment was just what they needed.

dynaSight strikes a balance between the familiar build verses buy dilemma. Its object-oriented drag and drop environment enables developers to rapidly create customized, flexible information systems from a broad range of relational or multi-dimensional data sources. This rapid application development results in dynaSight-powered solutions that take less than three months on average to implement, as compared to the industry standard of nine months for customized applications.

Card Services implemented their dynaSight-powered reporting solution in February 2002 – going live in just over two months. In the past year, more than 30 reports have been built using dynaSight, and the department’s user base has expanded to 400-plus individuals in marketing, finance and the strategic information analysis team. Pepperman hopes to soon expand that user base to Card Service’s 4,000 employees. “As additional reports are built and users added, dynaSight has handled any scalability issues with ease,” said Pepperman.

The solution provides Card Services with a more streamlined, Web-based, cross-cube, and consistent time series based reporting solution that helps the group better understand its customers and business. Response tracking for the campaigns is now automated, pulling data directly from more than 30 sources into a single reporting template accessible by all appropriate personnel. They now get a 360-degree view on anything from how customers open accounts to retention rates and spending behavior.

This initiative is producing significant ROI, saving $21,000 in expenses and contributing $450,000 in revenue yearly. “This dynaSight application we created for our Six Sigma project shortened our reporting and analysis cycle time from an average of 3.4 days to two hours.” boasted Pepperman. Business users accustomed to browser-based technology have found dynaSight easy to learn and use. With the new dynaSight environment, users gain a new depth and breadth of dimensions analyzed and complexity of metrics measured without hassle. Users more easily comprehend the information presented. They can expect the information they receive is not only accurate, but relevant to their job.

In the future, Bank of America will introduce more complex finance and budgeting processes into their applications, and due to its success, the solution is scheduled for speedy adoption in several other departments. Further down the road, areas using the solution may add executive dashboards complete with traffic lights and key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor aberrations and trends at a high level. By popular request, a reporting solution that would take advantage of dynaSight’s mobile functionality is in the early stages of implementation.

About arcplan
arcplan is a globally successful software developer whose solutions enable companies to bridge business initiatives and IT resources for maximum productivity and competitive advantage. With arcplan’s business intelligence and product configuration platforms, IT and business professionals can rapidly create highly functional Web-based applications without the cost and complexity of traditional solutions. arcplan dynaSight is a best-in-class BI platform that leverages existing IT investments by integrating seamlessly with all enterprise data. Its user-friendly development environment makes it easy to deliver a wide range of analytic applications to business users, including executive dashboards, scorecards, budgeting/forecasting, P&L and program tracking systems. Sophisticated data visualization and a highly intuitive interface enable users at any level to easily obtain and analyze company information. arcplan dynaSel, arcplan’s product configuration platform, delivers Web-based customized product design capabilities which enhance e-Commerce offerings. With dynaSel, Web users can easily and quickly configure multi-component products to their individual demands. Founded in 1993, arcplan has more than 1,500 customers and 200,000 users worldwide. Headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany and Philadelphia, PA, arcplan delivers its solutions through a global direct sales force and a network of more than 135 service and implementation partners in 30 countries. For more information, visit www.arcplan.com.

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