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Imperial Bank makes sense of data with IBM


Johannesburg, 23 Sep 2003

IBM, together with business partner Highbury Solutions, has provided a Imperial Bank with a business intelligence and data management solution as part of the bank`s drive to overcome the complexity of managing its distributed information systems.

The solution, built around IBM`s Olap server products and Highbury`s business intelligence products from ShowCase, a division of SPSS, was initiated almost a year ago and has already delivered a highly successful phase one of the project. Imperial is now able to draw on all business data from information stored in back-end databases, to spreadsheets on NT to information stored in Lotus Notes.

Mark Allen, head of facilities at Imperial Bank, says the decision to pursue a new data warehouse solution for the bank began almost a year ago. "We found we had users using a range of different systems and applications and we needed to consolidate the data stored in these systems into a single repository. The idea is that by doing this we would enable greater access to more consistent and regular data for reporting purposes."

Graham Ford, senior sales specialist data pillar at IBM, says IBM provided Imperial with two primary products: "Imperial purchased the DB2 OLAP Server for the IBM iSeries together with DB2 Olap Builder. They also purchased 5 DB2 Olap Server concurrent user licences. Together these products are used to extract the data from a range of sources inside the company and build the actual data warehouse."

Tools for analysing the data extracted and consolidated were provided by Highbury Solutions. Sean Camp, Data Management Sales Specialist for Highbury Solutions, says the products bought from Highbury were ShowCase Analyzer for the IBM iSeries, ShowCase Query and Report Writer and ShowCase Enterprise Reporting. Camp says the ShowCase analysis tools provides Imperial management with a top-down perspective of the entire organisation, no matter how dispersed the company and its staff.

"And using ShowCase Analyzer senior staff can drill down quickly and easily into any area of their business. It gives them fingertip access to the day-to-day running of the organisation."

Imperial also purchased ShowCase Query and Report writer which gives management even more control over their data through the use of ad-hoc query writing. This can be used, says Camp, to generate case-specific data sets whenever required.

Imperial`s Allen says that while his company`s previous data collection and analysis could be done relatively quickly, it did have to be done manually every time.

"With the IBM solution we are able to consolidate a lot more data and more frequently than before. Some of the components are already being consolidated daily which gives management quick access to the information as and when they need it."

Camp says one of the reasons Imperial Bank chose the IBM solution is that the bank is already a big user of IBM hardware, in particular AS400 which is used extensively to run the banking business. "But also I believe it was because of the relative strengths both IBM and Highbury brought to the solution.

IBM`s leading Olap Server products together with its long-standing reputation in the industry gave Imperial the confidence needed. And Highbury`s proven software skills in this space made for a leading partnership."

"When Imperial was looking for a solution we had the reference sites and had completed previous solutions like this elsewhere in the world which made them confident that we could do the job," says Camp.

"Imperial has also bought into the proven methodology and skills IBM offers in this sector of the market," says Ford.

Allen says that Imperial Bank has high expectations from the solution and will realise many benefits from the implementation. "We are also able to extend the solution further down the line and into other areas of the company," he says.

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IBM is the world`s largest information technology company, with more than 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM Software offers the widest range of applications, middleware and operating systems for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the new era of e-business.

IBM can be found on the Web at www.ibm.com/za.

The IBM Software home page can be found at ibm.com/software.

IBM`s Information Management Business

There are more than 60 million DB2 users from 425 000 companies worldwide relying on IBM DB2 Universal Database. IBM is the only data management software vendor to provide customers with integrated solutions for database management, tools, content management, enterprise information integration and business intelligence.

For more information, please visit www.software.ibm.com/data.

Editorial contacts

Anique Human
Sefin Marketing
(011) 886 1575
aniqueh@sefin.co.za
Graham Ford
IBM South Africa
(011) 302 9923
grahamfo@za.ibm.com