In every business-from manufacturing to agriculture-long-term success depends on achieving and maintaining optimal performance. It's the same in the banking industry. Even in the best of times, banks operate in a competitive and highly regulated environment, with low profit margins and high customer expectations-and this is not the best of times. Recent market conditions have caused many banks to fail, eroded customer confidence, and led to increased government oversight.
To prosper in today's volatile economic and regulatory climate, banks have to do more than simply cut costs and try to ride things out. They need to take proactive steps to market their services more effectively and to position themselves for growth and increased market share. To accomplish this, banks must acquire a deeper understanding of their customers' needs; quickly respond to trends in customer behavior; make strategic decisions based on reliable, real-time data; and manage every aspect of their performance while keeping costs low.
Unfortunately, much of the data banks need to address these challenges is either locked away in silos managed by incompatible or disconnected technology systems or scattered throughout the organization in individual employee files and spreadsheets that may be outdated or inaccurate. To address these problems, some banks have invested in expensive business intelligence solutions that are so complex only the IT staff can operate the system and only a few executives and top managers are allowed to access the data. As a result, the information is unavailable to many of the people who need it most.
The Microsoft Performance Management in Banking solution enables banks to improve their performance, generate more revenue, and increase profitability.
This solution provides the tools banks need to monitor and analyze data at every level of the organization and to make the resulting information and insights available to all authorized bank employees in a format they already understand and know how to use: Microsoft Office 2007. With the Microsoft solution, everyone from top executives to front-line employees can access metrics, key performance indicators, dashboards, and reports to see how they are contributing to overall corporate strategy and improving bank performance.
The Microsoft Performance Management in Banking solution also offers exceptional value. The solution is based on Microsoft applications that banks already use every day, which helps banks take full advantage of their existing software investments. And Microsoft's use of standards-based technology ensures better interoperability with legacy technology systems used by banks and their customers. Microsoft's integrated approach to performance management also enables banks to lower their costs by reducing training time and allows the IT staff to focus on other critical priorities. As a result of improved performance in combination with these additional benefits, full return on investment often can occur within the same fiscal year.
The Microsoft Performance Management in Banking solution, which is built on the Microsoft Business Intelligence platform and Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, enables banks to create a scalable performance management solution that provides built-in data mining, data integration, and outstanding data integrity and control.
Using Excel Services, the server-based version of Office Excel 2007 in Office SharePoint Server 2007, bank employees can publish their spreadsheets to the server and manage or modify them online. Access to information is controlled through a Web browser in a centrally managed environment, which helps to ensure that everyone is working with a single version of the truth while greatly improving and simplifying regulatory compliance.
By making business intelligence and analytics more democratic, the Microsoft solution empowers bank employees to unleash their creative energy and contribute more fully to everything from budgeting to business strategy. As a result, customers receive better service and become more profitable, and employees feel valued and more invested in the bank's success.