Page 120 - DCAP208_Management Support Systems

Unit 7: Business Analytics and Data Visualization

Notes
asset bank,” says Louise O’Donnell, Sun National’s vice president of management
information services.
Financial institutions generally offer the same products, so the bank wanted to understand
its customers better as a way to set itself apart from the competition. “A picture says a
thousands words,” and finding the best key performance indicators for analysts would
help them evaluate their businesses, she says.

The bank then chose data visualization software as its best bet, going through a 2-year
study to find the best product that fit in its environment and within its budget. “We
needed something to get the biggest bang for our buck,” O’Donnell says. Persuading
upper management of the need for a data visualization app was a challenge with the
bank’s budget constraints, so the adoption process was methodical. O’Donnell and her IT
staff conducted in-house case studies with software including Business Objects, Cognos
and Advizor Solutions, dedicating about 45 days to each software product. The testing
cycle consisted of bringing software in, building a demo and sharing it with different user
groups.
As part of its criteria, the MIS department wanted data visualization software that fit into
Microsoft SQL Server, so it selected Advizor’s Analyst Edition software for its dashboard
and analysis capabilities, which would allow users to monitor their departments through
key performance indicators, drill down to underlying data, then publish their views and
findings. Sun National also chose Microsoft Analysis Services and Reporting Services. As
part of its push to data visualization, Sun National built a data warehouse to centralize its
data, “so there’s one version of the truth,” O’Donnell says. To populate the SQL Server data
warehouse and Analysis Services data marts, the bank uses Microsoft Integration Services
to extract data from core systems, apply business rules, and aggregate and load the data.
The data marts are organized by business unit, including customer, retail and lending, and
function, such as ATM. Analysts then select a dashboard to see their information, rather
than viewing data in stand-alone spreadsheets and systems. They can now identify trends
and anomalies across customer and sales information, as well as monitor cash flow
projections and profitability trends. “They can create 65 reports which can be sorted 65
different ways,” she says. Analysts only have to drag their mouse and highlight certain
areas to drill down. “There’s a lot of trending and [data visualization] complements the
knowledge we really want to know about-particular products, customers and behaviors.”
The bank’s analysts aren’t the only ones who have benefited from data visualization
software. O’Donnell and her staff have been spared from producing reports for almost 25
departments, including deposit operations, accounting, small business loans and human
resources. MIS – a three-member staff – would write queries when an analyst made a
request and send data to him or her. If the analyst wanted to see more details, MIS would
have to run the query again, a process that could take about several hours. The data
visualization makes it possible to fulfill such requests in minutes. O’Donnell claims Advizor
data visualization software has reduced its workload “easily by 20 to 30 percent.” Prior to
the Advizor implementation, trending was difficult to track, but now between Advizor
and the data warehouse, Sun National has 3 years worth of information for trending. “Life
is so much easier now to fulfill our informational needs,” she says.
Question
Discuss the use of data visualization software.

Source: http://www.advizorsolutions.com/markets/ADT%20Sun%20Banks%20on%20Data%20
Visualization%20to%20Win%20Customers.pdf

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