International Financial Data Services Builds Customer Equity With WebFOCUS
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- Canada
Product
- WebFOCUS
- DataMigrator
- Active Technologies
- Portal
- InfoAssist
- Mobile Favorites
- ReportCaster
- Resource Analyzer
Tech Stack
- Business Intelligence
- Data Visualization
- Data Migration
- Mobile Technology
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Customer Satisfaction
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Applicable Industries
- Finance & Insurance
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Predictive Quality Analytics
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
- Training
About The Customer
Based in Toronto, International Financial Data Services (IFDS) Canada provides outsourcing administration services and technology to the mutual fund, insurance, and banking industries in Canada and internationally. Commonly known as a transfer agency, IFDS owns and operates its own record-keeping system, called iFAST, which is used by more than 150 organizations, mostly mutual fund companies. In Canada, as the largest net settlement user over the FundSERV network, IFDS processes an average of 100,000 transactions each day.
The Challenge
IFDS clients lacked self-service reporting and analysis tools that could visualize disparate data in a meaningful way. In many instances, clients had to hire a third-party firm to translate raw transaction data into a format that was useful for reporting and analysis. IFDS set out to eliminate the need for third-party solution providers by providing business intelligence (BI) tools that its clients can use themselves. To achieve this transformation and create a dashboard-driven environment for reporting and analysis, IFDS used technology and services from Information Builders.
The Solution
Information Builders helped IFDS to develop IFDS Insight, a comprehensive business intelligence solution for executives and sales officers. IFDS retained Information Builders Professional Services to help construct IFDS Insight, a BI dashboard and associated reports based on the WebFOCUS BI platform. Their foremost objective was to emulate the client experience through user-friendly reports and dashboards. The team also created a mobile version of the solution for smartphones and tablets. The internal IT group at IFDS collaborated closely throughout the development cycle to create the solution and build a business intelligence competency center. Information Builders spearheaded the development work and up-front testing while IFDS helped integrate the new BI environment with its surrounding infrastructure. Information Builders also helped construct the back-end database. This involved extracting data related to funds, categories, share classes, dealers, and advisors from the iFAST record-keeping system and loading it into a repository optimized for reporting.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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