How to improve qualitative information on customers using Data … · Dublin, June 20-23 2000 - 1 -1 Elisabete Silva, Henrique Nicola Caixa Geral de Depósitos Direcção de Sistemas

- 11 -Dublin, June 20-23 2000Dublin, June 20-23 2000

ElisabeteElisabete Silva Silva,, Henrique Henrique Nicola NicolaCCaixaaixa G Geral deeral de D DepósitosepósitosDDirecçãoirecção dede S Sistemas deistemas de I InformaçãonformaçãoE-E-mailmail:: elisabete [email protected]@cgdcgd..ptpt henrique henrique..nicolanicola@@cgdcgd..ptpt

SAS European Users Group International (SEUGI) 18SAS European Users Group International (SEUGI) 18Dublin, June 20-23 2000Dublin, June 20-23 2000

How to improve qualitative information on customersHow to improve qualitative information on customersusing Data Mining techniquesusing Data Mining techniques

andandSAS Enterprise SAS Enterprise MinerMinerTMTM


AgendaAgenda

• Objectives

• Introduction

• Data Mining Concepts

• Description of Project Work

• Conclusions


ObjectivesObjectives

• Fulfilment of several DMP (CGD Marketing Department)requirements on the data mining of credit cardcustomers:

• Preparation of a credit card propensity and segmentationmodel with a view to identifying the target customer segmentfor a marketing campaign.


Business Needs: Improving QualitativeBusiness Needs: Improving QualitativeInformation on CGD CustomersInformation on CGD Customers

• One of the objectives of DMP’s credit cards area is to increase thenumber of its customers. The objective was to identify thecustomer segment at which marketing and sales actionswere to be particularly targeted.

• An analysis of the profile of credit card customers may help torefine the definition of customers at whom a campaign should betargeted and the most suitable approach to be made – reducingcampaign costs and their efficiency.

DW


Incorporation in Data Warehouse ProjectIncorporation in Data Warehouse Project

NT Server

DB2 DB2

OS390 OS390

Operational Systems

LANWindows 95

DW

Information System

OS390 Servers Server

List of Tables

External Data

TCP/IPSNA

Data Marts OLAP

Data Mining

Ad-Hoc Queries ,Reporting

Communications platform

• Temporary Data• WEB Server• Data Mining Server• DSS Server• DB2 Connect Server• ...


Data Mining - What it is?Data Mining - What it is?

• Data Mining is the process used to select, exploit and model largevolumes of data with a view to identifying previously unknownconsistent patterns or systematic relationships between variables,with a view to generating major value to an organisation’s businessor activities.

•The process consists of the extraction of previously unknown, valid,usable data from databases upon which crucial business decisionsmay be made.

• The principal objective is to develop a system to provide for futureevents through the analysis of past occurrences.


Data Mining - What it is?Data Mining - What it is?

• What were the products whose sales increased last month?

• What was the reason for the success of this product?


Data Selection Stage

SAS®DB2 Table

Coding Stage in SAS®

Report Preparation

Knowledge Extraction (i.e. Data Mining) Stage

Cluster

1

Cluster2

Cluster3

Cluster4

Cluster5

Cluster6

Knowledge Database Extraction ProcessKnowledge Database Extraction Process(Data Mining)(Data Mining)

Data Enhancement Stage

Data Reduction Stage


Advantages of Data Mining as a MarketingAdvantages of Data Mining as a MarketingSupport ToolSupport Tool

• More detailed information on company’s customers

• Cost reduction

• Increased campaign efficiency

• Direct versus Traditional Marketing

(1) A mail is sent to a trial group.

(2) Examination of replies.

(3) Data Mining is used to analyse the profile of repliers and non-repliers.

(4) Selection of sub-groups with highest probability of replying.

DW

(5) Selection of sub-group in question.


Initial Work - Extraction and Analysis of DataInitial Work - Extraction and Analysis of DataQualityQuality

!Definition of data set to be analysed;

!Extraction of data required for the defined analyses fromlegacy systems (operational systems);

!Loading of extracted data in SAS®;

!Definition of rules for the preparation of data and new files;

!Analysis and validation of data.


Work Performed Using SAS Enterprise Work Performed Using SAS Enterprise MinerMinerTMTM

!Training on use of tool;

! Installation of tool on NT server and team PC workstations;

!Study of profile of CGD customers: differentiatingcharacteristics between credit card and non credit cardcustomers

!Creation of a credit card acquisition propensity model (standardmodel);

!Creation of a “classic” (i.e. standard) credit card acquisitionpropensity model (classic model);

!Creation of a gold credit card acquisition propensity model(gold model);

!Creation of a gold credit card acquisition propensity model forclassic credit card customers (upselling model);

!Creation of customers segments.


Several Tool OutputsSeveral Tool Outputs

AGE on 30 June 1999

Credit Card Indicator


Several Tool OutputsSeveral Tool Outputs

Phone channel Indicator

AgeAmount of LDN (i.e. overdraft) Spending Limit


Results by SegmentResults by SegmentCluster 0 – Inactive (25%)

! low asset levels - 57% of customers have less than PTE100,000 in investments;! only 4% have residential mortgage loans and only 2% havetaken out personal loans;! customers with weak ties to CGD, having little more than acurrent account.

Cluster 1 – Traditional savers (22%)! 39% of customers are retired and 18% are middle age(50-65);! few of these customers (3% and 2% respectively) use debitand credit cards;! 99% of these customers have more than PTE 200,000 inDeposits and 37% have more than PTE 2,000,000;! they do not use Credit products;! they prefer term deposits – more traditional customers –76% have more than one term deposit account;! 4% are classified as preferred customers.


Cluster 2 – Active Investors (15%)! around 66% of customers are over 50;! 98% have deposits amounts more than PTE 2,000,000;! these customers do not use credit but have savingsaccounts, some financial products ranging from the mosttraditional to the most sophisticated.

Cluster 3 – Top-top (7%)! 45% of customers are middle aged (50-65);! 94% have deposits amounts more than PTE 2,000,000;! 83% of these customers have more than one current accountand 22% have overdrafts;! these customers are investors - 68% have securitiesportfolio, 61% have one or more term deposit accountsand 56% have savings accounts;! 86% of these customers have taken out a residentialmortgage loan;! 18% are classified as preferred customers;! these are sophisticated, investing customers who makeuse of a wide range of the bank’s products.

Results by SegmentResults by Segment


Cluster 4 – Users of Debit Cards (8%)! 82% of these customers have investments of less thanPTE 200,000 although they have savings accounts;! they are transactional customers – 11% are CaixaDirectasubscribers, 79% have debit cards and 34% have creditcards.

Cluster 5 – High Spenders (11%)! most of these customers are aged between 25-65 and belongto the working population (82%);! these customers have high credit levels and do not makeinvestments - 6% have recorded payment defaults;! these are customers with a high level of credit productpropensity – 91% have taken out residential mortgageloans, 25% have taken out personal loans and 24% haveoverdrafts.



Cluster 6 – Borrowers (12%)! these are customers with loan product propensity - 76%have taken out residential mortgage loans, 31% have takenout personal loans and 26% have overdrafts;! these customers are moderate in their use of credit - thepayment default rate is not particularly high.



Results: segmentationResults: segmentation

Cluster Description % pop % Credit Card Users

Cluster 0 Inactive Customers 25 16Cluster 1 Traditional Savers 22 4Cluster 2 Active Investors 15 32Cluster 6 Borrowers 12 57Cluster 5 High Spenders 11 29Cluster 4 Users of Debit Cards 8 34Cluster 3 Top-top 7 67


17 Credit Card Sales Teams

Marketing Campaign

Current Activities...Current Activities...

Lists containing information on customers with agreater propensity to acquire credit cards were

obtained and distributed to those Teams as a result ofthe

Propensity Model Pilot Project


Several results:e.g:

Branch X (standard Lisbon branch)

70% of telephone calls made before 16:30 wereunanswered

15 % of the remainder expressed no interest in theproduct...15 % expressed interest in the product =>

between 3% - 4% acquired a new credit card!(10% - 13% of total answered calls)

Current Activities...Current Activities...


ConclusionsConclusions

• The qualitative information obtained on CGD customerswas highly relevant to CGD’s Marketing Department;

• It was show that the use of data mining tool - SASEnterprise MinerTM - made it possible to obtain freshinformation of vital business interest;

• Much of the project’s success was, in part, based on themulti-disciplinary (IT and business - DSI and DMP)composition of the project team.


Future Projects using SASFuture Projects using SAS®®: Data Mining in CGD: Data Mining in CGD

• Customer Churn (Attrition)

• Customer Retention

• Customer Acquisition

• Customer Profitability

• Targeted Marketing• Cross Selling

• Market-basket analysis

• Upgrading or Upselling

• Fraud Detection

• Channel Management

• Risk Analysis• Attributing of Credit Limits

• Webmining

DW

Information System

AG’s Tables

Data Marts

Maximising your CFO Vision™ IT Infrastructure:Citrix Metaframe™ in a Geographically Dispersed Organization

©2000 - Michael G. SilvaVon-der-Tann-Str. 21! D-69126 Heidelberg ! GermanyTel. +49 (6221) 316745 ! Fax: +49 (6221) 316746 ! Email: [email protected]

Introduction

Many organizations today are faced with amultifaceted challenge in business andfinancial reporting and management.These challenges present themselves in thatorganizations are becoming more distributedby nature due to mergers and acquisitionsand Information Technology presents morecomplexity and choices in ERP solutions.This dual pronged atmosphere causesexecutives, managers and financial staffmembers pain but also the IT departmentand business users who rely on thisinformation for decision making suffer aswell.

A difficult life for financial executives?

Financial groups in many organizationsstruggle to bring together the variousinformational sources from far-flungsubsidiaries and create meaningful reportswhen they are needed and where they areneeded. Why is there such a high level offrustration in this area? Finance executivesare used to having the prestigious positionof providing strategic input in a myriad ofbusiness decisions. Formerly, it wassometimes easier to force IT decisionsconcerning financial managementoperational software. However, nowadayswith so many cross-border mergers, it isnearly impossible to predict or determinewhat type of software will be in use at amerged or acquired company. Even organicgrowth organizations have a hard timeforcing subsidiaries to use operationalsoftware packages not designed for the lineof business they are engaged in, or do not fitthe regional requirements.

Moreover, the average month end close forUS companies is 8-15 days and the averagefor UK companies is 10-20 days1.Obviously, the turnaround time for deliveringfinancial information to executives andstrategic decision makers is clearly laggingbehind the demand for this information. Ontop of all this is the demand for datacoherency, integrity and portability. As the

1 Salt, Deborah, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Report,Consolidation Solutions 1999

New Economy moves ever faster, thisproblem can only intensify.

The IT Dilemma

To further exacerbate the problem, many ITdepartments are struggling with various datasources, which are extracted from theexisting ERP systems. Often, theseprocesses are convoluted and are based ontext file extraction into Microsoft Excel orsimilar spreadsheet packages. PriceWaterhouse Coopers completed a studyshowing that 90% of all financial data storedin spreadsheets has major errors. This factalone is enough for not only the ITdepartment but also the entire organizationto take heed in using this information foranything even remotely strategic.

Furthermore, IT professionals responsiblefor Financial Reporting and Consolidation(FRC) packages are finding that the promiseof true thin client applications are still not inthe market place. Although some reportwriters have developed web-basedsolutions, it should be noted that FRCapplications are far more complex then mostbusiness oriented report writing. Theseapplications need to take into considerationthe five types of financial reports:

! Listing! Document! Statement! Consolidation! Analytical

Simple table listings and documents can beeasily accommodated by the usual ReportWriter vendors. These types contain simplelisting of numbers and perhaps special fontsfor certain applications. However,statements, consolidation and Analyticalreports require financial intelligence notusually found in these applications. Thesereports are much more complex and requireformatting, formula creation, matrix listing,balance sheet and income statementintelligence and the ability to view data in amultidimensional format2.

2 McKie, Stewart, The New Paradigm for ReportWriters, Business Finance Magazine, October 1998



Traditionally IT departments have been quitesatisfied providing the first two types ofreports to standard business users. Ingeneral, these users have been quite happywith the solutions. However, as the move tointroduce the products into the financialgroup, they find out quite quickly that theseproducts do not have the capabilitiesneeded for the latter three types of reports.

Fat FRC Applications

There are currently 17 listed vendors of FRCapplication vendors in the Business FinanceMagazine list of financial consolidation andreporting packages. All of these vendorshave struggled with bringing true thin clientapplications to market due to the limitationsof current technologies such as HTML, Java,JavaScript and ActiveX.

Naturally, this is changing as new releasesof developer’s toolkits arrive giving thevendors the needed development packagesfor creating these applications. The followingmajor FRC vendors are shipping or planningto ship web enabled FRC applications:

Hyperion Systems – cobbled togethersolution combining Arbor Essbase productsand Hyperion Enterprise with Spiderman tocreate a pseudo web enabled application.

Cognos – Again Cognos has the ability touse PowerPlay for the web with CognosFinancials although it is not advertised asso.

Comshare – Strictly a Microsoft Windowsapplication with no mention of webenablement.

Longview Solutions - Kahlix for consolidationand reporting is also a Microsoft Windowsbased application but can work with staticHTML files.

SAS Institute – CFO Vision in it’s presentrelease also does not provide a dynamicweb enabled client but does have static webreporting and an experimental OLAP viewercalled Open Olap.

As shown above, all of the major vendorsare shipping fat clients. The question now

arises, how does a distributed organizationensure maximum benefit from implementinga fat financial reporting and consolidationpackage.

What is a Thin Client?

Information Technology is probably oneindustry where there are sometimes moreopinions than options. The definition of thinclient is one that has been debated for awhile now. By definition, it is actually ahardware device which was introducedseveral years ago called a NetworkComputer. Its state is stored on the serverand the client merely loads it on the desktop.It should also be noted that X Windows andICA clients fall into the thin client categoryas well, although all of the processing takesplace on the server and only the graphicsare sent back to the client.

Figure 1 depicts thin and thick clients.

The confusion begins when certain softwarevendors claim thin client ability when in fact,in most cases, it is not the software vendorwho has developed anything to do with thinclients. Ensuring n-tier client/server basedcomputing and thin clients are two separateissues. The vendors mentioned in thispaper are concentrating on n-tierclient/server applications which can beaccessed by thin clients, PCs, and as thetitle of this paper suggests, ICA clients.

Microsoft Windows Terminal Server

Windows Terminal Server is Microsoft’sanswer to the thin client computing trend. Itallows any Windows client to access 32 bit



applications running on an NT 4.0 server.Windows Terminal Server Edition (TSE)main design goal is to lower the total cost ofownership of desktop computers. It isdebatable as to whether there is a blanketreduction in total cost of ownership.However, there is certainly a reduction inownership costs for line of businessapplications and geographically dispersedapplications such as FRC packages andparticularly for CFO Vision from SASInstitute.

Unfortunately, TSE is limited in its technicalability to allow non-Windows clients toaccess the server. In addition, there arescalability issues, and lack of managementand configuration tools. Citrix Metaframeadds to the TSE model to provide theseservices and more.

Citrix Metaframe

Citrix Systems was founded by EdwardIacobucci in 1989. Iacobucci was a formerIBM executive responsible for OS/2development. He came up with the idea ofserver based computing from the mainframeworld and wanted to move it to the OS/2platform. However, IBM management didnot believe that a market existed for serverbased computing on the Intel platform so heformed his own company to do just that.

Citrix Metaframe contains several keycomponents, which make it unique.

! Independent ComputingArchitecture (ICA)

! Metaframe Management Tools! Client Desktop Integration

Although TSE provides complete multi-userfunctionality on its own, the threeshortcomings mentioned in the previoussection hinder its adoption as an enterprise-wide solution. Firstly, Metaframe providesscalability through load balancing. TSEclaims that administrators can run up to a100 users on a single server. In actuality,many administrators would be reluctant todo this because it provides no fault toleranceor redundancy. A single hardware failurewould result in lost user productivity.

Currently, TSE requires that administratorsinstall a second server separately andduplicate the functionality resulting in twicethe management and twice the cost.

Secondly, TSE lacks support forheterogeneous computing environments. Asmentioned previously, organizations arefinding that through mergers andacquisitions the IT environment inherited isnot always compatible with the one of thehead office. This should not cause delay ingetting key financial data to managers andexecutives simply because theenvironments are different.

Lastly, TSE is lacking management tools forconfiguring and controlling server applicationfarms. Metaframe provides tools formanaging groups of servers and publishedapplications for sets of users. These toolsassist immensely in deploying enterpriseapplications in large organizations.

Total Cost of Ownership

In determining TCO for a thin-clientcomputing project such as with CFO Visionand Citrix Metaframe, one has to calculatetwo types of costs.

The first one is the hard costs associatedwith the project. These are straightforwardand pertain to the purchase price of thehardware and software needed to completethe project. In addition, the organizationmay not need to purchase new desktopcomputers, thus further reducing hard costsin the project.

Second, the soft costs must be calculated.Often, organizations make the criticalmistake of only calculating hard costs todetermine the TCO of a project. However,the soft costs can far outstrip hard costs,especially in high cost labor countries.These costs are associated with thehardware maintenance, application supportand end-user support.

TSE and Metaframe reduce soft costs bytreating hardware maintenance costs similarto desktop maintenance costs. The serverfarm is like a desktop in that if one fails it is



replaced with a duplicate just as a desktopcomputer would be replaced. Users of aserver farm see no reduction in applicationup time thus costs are lowered.

Application support costs are reduced byreducing the time it takes to deploy andsupport new applications. Administratorscan make new applications available toevery user more quickly and now have onlyone instance of the application to maintain.Testing and evaluation time is increased, asmultiple hardware/software platforms neednot be tested.

ICA® Defined

ICA is an acronym for Citrix’s IndependentComputing Architecture, a three-partapplication server technology that separatesan application’s logic from its user interfaceand allows 100% application execution onthe server.

Moreover, ICA is becoming a standard in thethin client industry. "Over 130 companieshave licensed ICA and are using it todeliver a broad suite of applicationservices to more than 200 differenttypes of client devices, and this is atestament to the on-going acceptanceof our enabling technology. With 24million users, ICA has surpassed the usercount of the most popular onlineinformation services, reinforcing Citrix'sleadership position in application servermarkets"3.

This opens a completely new applicationscenario enabling not only Windowsbased clients to access services onMetaframe servers but also otherdevices not originally intended foraccessing FRC applications such asmobile devices, handheld devices andtelevision sets.

Three components make up the ICAenvironment:

Metaframe Server – All information receivedor sent by the Metaframe server uses the 3 Iacobucci, Edward, President & CEO Citrix Systems,April 2000

ICA protocol on top of another protocol suchas TCP/IP, IPX or NetBEUI. This includesscreen displays, sound, and client drivemappings.

Presentation Services Protocol - The ICAprotocol bundles and transports informationsuch as keystrokes, mouse actions andscreen updates to the ICA client and alsoreceives and processes information that theclients have sent back.

ICA Client – The client receives the ICAinformation, translating it into the applicationinterface, which is displayed to the user onhis or her screen. It also takes actionsperformed by the user and send it back tothe Metaframe server for processing. Theinterface is presented to the user while100% of the processing takes place on theserver.

Publishing Applications

This is a method of application deployment,where the user does not get a replacementfor his or her current desktop. Instead, theuser receives only the application in awindow on the desktop itself either via anICA client or within a web browser.

Publishing applications play a main role inload balancing and web-enablingapplications. These applications are locatedby clients through the ICA Master Browser.It should be noted that this is different from aWindows NT Master Browser and isindependent of that service. However, it issimilar in that it does not work across routersunless an ICA gateway is installed on one ofthe Metaframe servers located on one sideof the router. The ICA Master Browser isthen responsible for determining whichserver will serve up the application to theICA client.

Web-enabling Applications

Citrix Metaframe provides administratorswith the ability to make applicationsavailable to users with a web browser.Metaframe web computing is made up offour components:



The Metaframe Server – One or moreMetaframe servers publish the applicationthat will be accessed via the web browser.The Metaframe server views connectionsfrom web clients no differently than thosewhich connect via the Citrix ICA client andno special configuration is required.However, if users are located on the Internetthen special permissions should beincorporated to prevent authorized access.

The Web Server – The web server softwarecan run on either the Metaframe server or aseparate server such as used for acorporate Intranet. This author believesthat administrators should limit the load onthe Metaframe server and use a separateserver for web services. In some cases,administrators have to register the ICA filetype as a MIME type so that the applicationcan be launched. In some rare cases, webservers prevent Java from running on aseparate machine.

The Web Page – The web page contains allof the necessary information to launch theapplication. It consists of two components:the HTML file containing the required tagsand the associated ICA file containing theconnection information. Citrix provides anALE wizard for automating this process or itcan be created manually using HTMLeditors and the ICA client for creating theICA file.

The ICA Web client – There are a number ofclients called ICA Web clients. There is ageneral Windows web client which workswith any Windows based web browser thatsupports MIME. Citrix also provides anActiveX control for Internet Explorer and aNetscape Navigator Plug-in. There is also aJava web client that will work with any webbrowser that supports Java Virtual Machine(JVM) 1.1 or higher.

CFO Vision Considerations

There are several configuration changes,which must be considered whenimplementing CFO Vision in a CitrixMetaframe environment. Firstly, CFO Visionwas designed that each user would have acopy of the client software on his or herdesktop and each client would also have his

or her own configuration files. In a CitrixMetaframe environment, all users share thesame image of the application andtheoretically, they should have a commonconfiguration file. The whole idea ofreduced TCO requires that it become easierto maintain. CFO Vision’s present method ofapplication configuration does not providethis natively.

However, the flexibility of the SAS Systemallows a CFO Vision consultant to overcomethis limitation by dynamically building aconfiguration for each user. Theautoexec.sas file in CFO Vision containsclient specific configuration parameters. Forexample, each CFO Vision client must havea local storage area separate from otherclients for storing individual templates anddata called a local finroot. In order to ensurethat each client has its own local finroot,the following lines must be added to theautoexec.sas:

%Let finroot =%SYSGET(HOMEDIR)\LOC_FROOT;

Where HOMEDIR is the Windows NTenvironment variable specifying where auser has his or her private directory on theNT network and LOC_FROOT can be anydirectory name to be created in theHOMEDIR location. The SYSGET macro isa standard SAS System macro variable toreturning operating system environmentvariables.

In addition, changes to the config.sas canhelp optimize CFO Vision over slow networkconnections. Unfortunately, CFO Vision hasembedded bit maps files (.bmp), which arevery inefficient over slow connections. Themain splash screen can be disabled but anyimbedded bit maps are hard coded into theproduct. The following changes should bemade to the config.sas:

/* location of the CFO VisionSplash Screen*//* -splashloc !sasroot\p1win.bmp*/

-nosplash



-nosplash is a standard config.sasparameter for disabling the splash screen inSAS 6.12.

Experiments with changing the p1win.bmpfile in the CFO Vision application directorydid not work because the name is hardcoded into the application as well as the bitmap itself.

Quaker Chemical – A case study

Quaker Chemicals may be what some callthe “Old Economy”. However, it is actuallythe New Old Economy. The Old Economyimplies traditional organizations based onmanufacturing and other technologies,which although advanced are not solelybased on Information Technology or theNew Economy. Why is it then the New OldEconomy? It is called this because it is aprofit-based business dependent on corevalues that have made a companysuccessful for many years unlike the NewEconomy companies, which rarely show anyprofit. Moreover, these New Old Economycompanies use Information Technology toenhance business practices andrelationships with shareholders, customersand employees. Therefore, QuakerChemicals is a New Old Economyorganization as the use of InformationTechnology is seen as a majorenhancement to continued profits andshareholder value.

This author made a proposal to Bubba Tyler,CIO of Quaker Chemicals called EVAS orEnterprise-wide Virtual Application Suite.EVAS uses the techniques outlined earlier inthis paper to create a server farm for theapplication delivery of business intelligencepackages such as CFO Vision, CFO Visionfor Budgeting and Corporate InformationPartners ODD Loader package.

EVAS is scalable solution which allowsQuaker Chemical to achieve a lower cost ofownership for CFO Vision as well asimproved support and availability for theusers of the system.

The following diagram depicts the EVASmodel.

Figure 2 EVAS

The next step in the project was to provideaccess to users located outside of theprimary headquarters in ConshohockenPennsylvania USA. Quaker Chemicals hasa geographically dispersed environment withsubsidiaries in every part of the world.Some of it’s larger offices are connected viaa Frame Relay network to the US but someother offices located in the IndianSubcontinent and South America areconnected via a Virtual Private Network fromAT&T. Therefore, the connection speedvaries from 28.8 Kilobytes per second to 2Megabytes per second (shared) for framerelay.

Unfortunately, client/server applicationssuch as CFO Vision are not accommodatingof slow telecommunication lines. This is truefor all FRC applications. The only solution isto use an client independent architecturesuch as the one found with Citrix Metaframe.It should be noted that the backend servercomponents must be Windows NT for CFOVision as the client application is Windowsonly. However, the CFO Vision server canbe a Unix server.

To achieve the goal of a centralilzed FRCsystem in a geographically dispersedenvironment, one must also consider theend-user and their requirements. Often,FRC applications are used a few day amonth and then forgotten until the nextmonth. Therefore, it should be as easy touse as possible with a place whereinstructions and news can be placed beforethe user runs the application. The bestapproach to achieve this goal is to use CitrixMetaframe application web-enablement and



create an html page for launching theapplication.

Below is a screen shot of the main FinancialApplications page one the QuakerOneInformation Portal.

A Swiss Manufacturing Company – Acase study

It should also be noted that even companieswho have geographically dispersed entitiesare also driven to this model for other costsaving reasons. In the example of a Swissmanufacturing company, not only were theymotivated by the benefits of bringingtogether international subsidiaries, they alsosaw cost savings by outsourcing the entireFRC infrastructure.

They were able to obtain this by enlisting thehelp of an Application Service Provider inSwitzerland. This ASP offered to host thehardware necessary for an FRCinfrastructure. This included a CFO Visionserver and a Citrix Metaframe server.Moreover, the ASP provided VPN service totheir client allowing them to utilize theirexisting Internet connection thus furtherreducing both hard and soft costs.

The ASP Model – a viable alternative?

Now the thorny issue of licensing pops up.SAS Institute does not have an ASP modelin their licensing contracts. It is an individualhorse trade with the local European officesto get this sort of pricing. In the example ofthe Swiss company above, the server isused exclusively by the ASP’s client and noother. Therefore, there is no technical

breach of contract because the software issimply being housed somewhere else.

However, the industry is moving towardsleasing out applications that are physicallystored and managed by third parties. Thequestion is, will SAS Institute accommodatethis trend?

Conclusions

FRC vendors need to address the total costof ownership of these applications in ageographically dispersed environment.Although some have come up with clevermethod of replicating data across slownetworks, many organizations want acentralized method of collecting, cleaning,consolidating and reporting on enterprisefinancial data. Citrix Metaframe offers andexcellent way to provide this functionalityindependent of the FRC package in use.This is a critical choice to make as not allFRC packages are created equal. Whowould want an FRC application that is web-enabled but only has four dimensions?

Documents

How to improve qualitative information on customers using Data … · Dublin, June 20-23 2000 - 1 -1 Elisabete Silva, Henrique Nicola Caixa Geral de Depósitos Direcção de Sistemas