Investmentz Case Study

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Asit C Mehta InvestmentIntermediates Ltd, astock broking firm has

over 300 branches apart fromfranchisees. An enormousnumber of query requests aregenerated each day from alarge number of businessusers within the company. Inthe past, every little queryhad to be manually generatedby the IT team once a requestcame in from the user.

Although requests wouldoften be similar, separatequeries needed to be generat-ed in each instance. As mostof the data was lying in dif-ferent file formats, diggingout information was difficult.

Prasad Bapat, CIO, Asit C Mehta, InvestmentIntermediates Ltd says, “A lotof data is accumulated at thedata centre and we have touse this data in an intelligent

manner to arrive at a busi-ness decision which will helpto take the organisation for-ward. There were a largenumber of individual data-bases and MIS and reportsthat were required. The ITdepartment was receiving a large number of queryrequests and requests for for-matting etc. We realised thata lot of reporting requirementwas coming from differentdepartments and differentusers including the top man-agement and the down theline users. This requirementcame with different formatsand different parameters.”

This task had become aburden on the software andIT department of the compa-ny. The company was look-ing for some business intelli-

gence solution using datawarehousing concepts. Thesolution had to be userfriendly as the users werebusiness users and mightresisted a complex applica-tion. So the required solutionhad to enable and empowerusers to generate thosereports and use them moreefficiently to meet their fre-quently changing require-ments to make use of thesame data in different ways.The company decided to gofor MAIA intelligence’s 1Keysolution and the deploymentbegan in January 2007. It iscurrently in its final phase of completion.

The evaluation phaseA lot of time and effort

was going into the relatively

P E E R - T O - P E E R

■ IT hours are spent on more productive projects.■ Complete freedom for end users who can avail of a vari-

ety of reports.■ Business users have access to reliable information.■ Reduction in analysis time for business users.■ Improved accuracy in decision-making.■ Improved efficiencies and streamlined operations.

Benefits of 1key

BI helps brokerage firm up its operationsAsit C MehtaInvestmentIntermediates Ltddeployed MAIA 1Keyto ease the load on itsIT department.By Varun Aggarwal

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simple job of reporting, datacollection and correction.The company was exploringsome tools for MIS reportingand came to know about thissolution. “We did some eval-uation on a preliminary basiswith a few reports, whichwere quite acceptable evenby the end users for theirfirst hand confirmation.When we realised that thatthe users were comfortablewith the solution, and wefinally decided to go with1Key.”

After evaluating MAIA’s1key solution, the companydecided to deploy it in aphased manner. As a proof of concept, the companyapplied some sample data-bases to generate simplequeries. Bapat adds, “Afterthe successful completion ofthis phase they moved to amore difficult and a largerdatabase wherein about onecrore of records were thereand then when we werefinally satisfied with the kindof results that were achieved,we were ready to use thesolution in our organisation.We thought that it would be agood idea to standardise thisas a tool for all our businessrequirements. So based onthat we awarded them a con-tract and they had a partnerwith them who would bedoing the actual implementa-tion. So it was a good tie upbetween a good product company and an equallyresponsible implementerwho would take it forwardand make it successful.”

Bapat says that the solu-tion has been deployed in four departments. In the firstphase they converted existingreports into 1key. Todaywhen a request comes in,users can be told that theycan satisfy the request themselves using this newsolution.

Bridging communicationgaps

Unlike most of the soft-ware deployments, the com-pany did not face much of achallenge in the deploymentof the 1key solution. Thougha lot of fine tuning was

required based on the user’sfeedback, there weren’t any major issues related toperformance.

Bapat says, “Initiallythere was some communica-tion gap at the implementa-tion level, wherein the userswanted something and theywere given something else.The existing reports weregiven in the same formatand fine tuning the reportand the flexible featureswere not explored by theuser. We have a complainregister used by the technol-ogy department. So now weare looking forward to use

those reports to analysethings like the number ofcomplaints, the average timeto solve a particular com-plaint, how many com-plaints have taken more thanthe stipulated time toresolve. We were previouslydoing this in Excel and nowthis will be available in 1key.The report is there but weare not currently using it as

we are still in the final stageof implementation.”

Bapat feels that usertraining is an importantaspect for any kind of soft-ware deployment. As the endusers in the company are allbusiness users, so they arenot entirely comfortable withIT tools. So it will take somebefore they get the feel of the ‘cool’ features andappreciate that all theirrequirements are readilyavailable and solvable.

Benefits achieved“Prior to the MAIA 1key

implementation we were fir-

ing the queries manuallyusing query analyser andthen pasting it into Excel,then formatting it and presenting it to the manage-ment. That was a verytedious task and was very time consuming. Plus,whenever the managementasked for new format, wehad to redesign all thequeries and formatting hasto be redone. In 1key allthese tasks can be done in asingle shot, using the cubefeature of 1key. This was avery good feature that Ifound,” says Bapat.

Bilal the MIS softwaremanager at Asit C MehtaInvestment Intermediates Ltdopines, “Previously we hadto maintain the reports onsome spare hard disks. Nowwe can assign a user’s securi-ty features in the system,

with which a particular usercan see only limited reportsand thus we can implementthe security part as well.With 1key, the same reportcan be taken to XML or anyother source, like it is nowpossible to view the reportseven at home. The imple-mentation part was done by1key’s partner. We had giventhem 30 sample reports. Mostof them have been complete-ly implemented. The usersare finding them satisfactoryas it easy to use with dragand drop features. With Excelusers were finding it difficultto do it using cut and paste. 1key has simplifiedthis task.”

The next stepThe company had cur-

rently deployed the solutionin four different departments.Bapat says that so far theresponse from the end userhas been good. “We are try-ing to figure out how manyusers are actually using theapplication for the best oftheir use. It still might take alittle time before all users getcomfortable with the soft-ware,” he says. The companyis planning to deploy 1key asan organisation wide tool andthe entire deployment acrossall departments shall be completed in a short periodof time.

The new features thatwould be added to the cur-rently deployed applicationwould be that of charts etcwhich would also be donesoon. Bapat concludes, “Wehave taken a conscious deci-sion to deploy this toolorganisation-wide. Only thefirst stage is completed. Sowe have not used to its fullpotential. We are able toconvert the existing reportsand with some amount ofrework and with user feed-back. One thing which I real-ly like is the drill down fea-ture, and there are some cal-culation features that areavailable. The chart featurewill be deployed within afew days.”

The company belongs to Mumbai based “Nucleus Group” and is engaged in broking inshares, money, forex, commodities and BPO services.The group is promoted by Asit C

Mehta jointly with Mrs. Deena A. Mehta.The activities in the capital market started in the year 1986 as a brokerage house for retail

investors and market making in select scrips and extended to financial intermediation activitiesin money, capital and currency markets.

Later the group diversified into development of databases, back office application for banksand corporate, document management solutions and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)and commodities broking.

The company is in the process of being empanelled as a Depository Participant for custodyof various commodities traded on the National Commodity Exchanges.The company also provides guidance to the investors through investor education seminars and regular researchpublication.

About the company

Prior to the MAIA 1key implementation

we were firing the queries manually using

query analyser and pasting the results

into Excel, formatting and presenting it

to the management. In 1key all these

tasks can be done in a single shot

Server hardware

Pentium 4-single CPU 2.0 MHz, 1 GB RAM,80 GB Hard Disk

Server software

Windows 2000 server, IIS, SQL Server Express

Clienthardware

Pentium III, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB Hard Disk

Client software

Windows 98/XP

System Configuration