ABSA`s commercial banking division has recently completed a successful proof-of-concept exercise, which will enhance the quality of reporting and reduce turn-around time to produce reports on up to 28 million balances. Based on the success of the Microsoft SQL Server-based Analyst Financials solution, distributed by Harvey Jones Systems, roll-out to the remaining divisions within ABSA is currently under investigation and planned to be completed by mid-2001.
As the biggest division of ABSA, the commercial banking`s reporting system was considered to be the most suitable to test the deployment, before full roll-out. Following the success of this four-month exercise, users are now able to benefit from the new financial reporting solution. Following the commercial banking deployment, the Analyst Financials roll-out to the short-term insurance and IT finance divisions took one week to complete, resulting from the joint efforts by both the ABSA and Harvey Jones teams.
According to Roger Brooks, head of IT finance at ABSA, the company needed to empower users of the financial information to a greater extent. "We required a cost-effective financial reporting tool that could handle large volumes of data, turning it into information for use by our employees, making them more productive."
In the past, the separate business units within ABSA had been reliant on specialist divisions to produce and alter required reports for them. When a different type of report was required, or ad-hoc analysis had to be performed, re-keying or duplication of data from different sources took place. With the new solution, the data is made available to users through the Microsoft SQL Server database, which is accessed through Analyst Financials as the front-end tool. Business units are now easily able to generate standard reports, make alterations to them or create new ones. "By bringing our users closer to the data, there is greater ownership and consequently less need to spend time checking the content of the reports," comments Brooks.
"ABSA required standardisation of its business processes through the formalisation of reporting systems," says Keith Jones, managing director at Harvey Jones Systems. "With Microsoft SQL Server being open standards-based, we can assure our joint customers that they will be able to easily implement Analyst Financials, ensuring that it easily integrates with incumbent software. We found that SQL Server is the only database on the market that is able to cope with high volumes, as well as multi-user platforms, for maximum reliability and efficiency."
"Being able to process these large volumes quickly and efficiently, gives ABSA a competitive edge in the local banking market," says Vanessa Edwards, partner manager at Microsoft South Africa. "As a result, it can respond to market changes with more agility, while freeing up employees` time to take on more meaningful tasks. The benefits of the e-enablement of critical business processes is evident with ABSA`s implementation of its new financial reporting system."
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