|
|
||||
COCC’s Total Vision Revolutionizes Business Intelligence at North Country Savings Bank
“In today’s fast paced environment, we need to focus on information that requires immediate attention, not every detail on every account,” says Coakley. That change in thinking has begun a transformation at the $245M savings bank. Today, Coakley and North Country’s technology partner, COCC, are busy replacing the bank’s traditional, flat reporting with “dashboard” indicators and information “feeds” that appear automatically on employee smart phones, spreadsheets and presentations. The bank’s senior executives currently receive weekly reports of key indicators that show which products are growing, shrinking and holding steady. Daily delinquency lists present loan collectors with everything they need to start knocking on doors. Branch managers read about their employees’ sales and referral activities. The loan manager can see total payoff dollars, new loan disbursements, and late fees waived every day. Supporting details are just a mouse click away. “COCC calls it Total Vision,” says Coakley, “and that’s just what it is — a total view of our bank that makes us more competitive, more efficient, and more profitable.” The bank has already experienced impressive gains in time and efficiency. Michael Noble, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, reports that critical month end statistics arrive days earlier than before, and every loan collector starts working the delinquent list an hour sooner, thanks to Total Vision. The bank even saves money on regulatory audits since it can “push” required information to the auditors’ offices, eliminating the fees required to bring audit personnel to the bank. “We can deliver information any time we need it, and more importantly, we can present the information in its most useful form,” says Noble. “We realized that in many instances, the most useful form of information isn’t the standard bank report. Instead, Total Vision enables us to automatically cull the information we need to focus on. We’ve found that looking at the right things at the right time makes a world of difference.” Total Vision is a collection of advanced data, reporting, and communications technologies. An Oracle “data mart” provides the raw customer and performance information, while Business Objects supplies the next generation selection and presentation tools. Secure web connections enable bank staff to schedule their information deliveries, and Microsoft’s Live Office enables employees to embed live report data into spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. Matt L’Heureux, COCC’s Assistant Vice President — Customer Service, said this opens the door to automatic updates to spreadsheets, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations. “Your reports will never be out of date,” he said. L’Heureux added that bank staff can receive their information in the form of emails, and Microsoft Office documents — even portal pages with drill-to-detail and hyperlinks to supporting documents. If staff are off site, the information can be sent to Blackberries and other secure devices so they can stay informed wherever they are. For security purposes, bank administrators can control access to the information by person, job title, level, and more. System functions can also be controlled, limiting access to basics such as report viewing or the system’s advanced query and analysis tools. Total Vision’s “dashboard” displays make the data even more valuable. For example, a bank can observe overdraft waivers by employee — a dial representing each person. With an acceptable number of waivers, the dial shows a needle in the “green” or acceptable zone. If the employee is too generous with the waivers, the needle points to the “red” or action zone. Clicking on the visual opens the more traditional report view with all the supporting details. “A big convenience in Total Vision is the ability to produce and distribute information automatically,” said Coakley. “Our staff no longer needs to remember to produce a report on a certain day or to manually print and email the report to a select audience. Total Vision produces and sends the information to the people we want.” The automated generation of information is helping North Country to convert its board package from paper to electronic. “We’re using First Monetary Mutual’s ‘EBoard.com’ package with Total Vision to generate the documents and forward them to the board members,” said Coakley. “It eliminates the copying and mailing, and enables me to produce better reports.” Coakley adds that the Total Vision product has shown the bank the true value of its information resource. “Now that the staff understands what they can do with the information, more requests are coming in,” he said. “What better way to align the institution with its strategies?” Mark Shaw, Chief Services Officer at COCC, added, “Total Vision delivers the power to better understand the organization’s business through one integrated solution for data management, reporting, analysis and content distribution. It’s no wonder that business intelligence is rapidly becoming an important investment for forward thinking institutions.”
Brian Coakley Click here to learn more about Total Vision. |
||||
