Commerzbank Relies on SAS® for Its High-Speed Reporting and Sales Management

Business Wire, Dec 18, 2007

CARY, N.C. -- Commerzbank is using a new business intelligence (BI) solution from SAS, the leader in business intelligence, for its consumer banking sales management. The reporting system, based on the SAS([R]) Scalable Performance Data Server, provides roughly 6000 users across the organization with consistent and valuable reports daily, weekly, and monthly on recent sales performance. An authorization system ensures that each user sees precisely the information important to him. Screens display everything from detailed results for individual consultants to stoplight-style performance graphics and drill-down management views. Integrating 3.4 terabytes of data, the solution is characterized by extremely high performance. Reports for the previous week are ready every Monday morning for every user.

Commerzbank's new solution recently received the "Business Intelligence Performer 2007" award at the 2007 SAS Forum in Mainz, Germany for the "BI for everyone" category. With this award, SAS Germany honors customers who implement innovative BI projects with especially high strategic value that simultaneously demonstrate the wide range of potential uses for BI.

All key controlling figures from the bank's main systems are aggregated by Commerzbank's new sales controlling solution, dubbed the "Performance Manager." While different tools were used previously to answer different questions, these functions are now integrated. This allows various interactions to be identified more easily than before, and also enables Commerzbank to assess consumer banking activities from different perspectives using an intuitive front end. Analysis criteria include consultant type, region,and consumer segment as well as ratios of customers to full-time staff.

Commerzbank decided to go with SAS predominantly for performance, flexibility and scalability. SAS can easily be expanded and modified to continue to meet Commerzbank's needs in the future. The SAS Scalable Performance Data Server, which excels at rapidly processing especially large quantities of data, guarantees the speed necessary for top-quality analysis. Business intelligence specialists Anaxima and SAS supported Commerzbank in implementing the solution.

"Initially, we tested solutions from different business intelligence providers against each other. The results were clear: SAS was the best at meeting our requirements for performance, flexibility and scalability," recounts Thomas Braun, Head of the Performance Management Group for Consumer and Corporate Banking at Commerzbank.

"I'm not exaggerating when I say that with SAS, we were able to set a true industry benchmark," adds Frank Weisske, who was responsible for developing sales management processes for consumer and commercial banking at Commerzbank from early 2002 through mid-2007. "To my knowledge, the reporting quality that we get over the weekend with our solution is currently unsurpassed by any other bank."

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