Microsoft Office SystemCustomer Solution Case Study

Malaysian Bank Increases Productivity with New Desktop Application Suite

OverviewCountry or Region: MalaysiaIndustry: Financial Services

Customer ProfileBased in Malaysia, EON Bank is a large local bank serving approximately 1.4 million customers. The bank is predominantly focused on retail banking, and has 134 branches.

Business SituationEON Bank deployed OpenOffice to reduce upfront costs of its desktop applications. This caused compatibility and formatting issues, which increased complexity and workloads for staff and customers.

SolutionEON Bank Group chose to deploy the 2007 Microsoft Office system to simplify tasks for employees, while eliminating compatibility issues for customers.

Benefits Uniform environment for

collaboration

“Particularly in the case of power users, tasks that used to take three to four hours now only take a fraction of the time with Microsoft Office 2007.”

Gurdev Singh, Head of Information Technology at EON Bank Group

EON Bank Group is one of the few local banking institutions to be listed on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia. In an effort to reduce costs, the bank had previously deployed OpenOffice as its desktop application suite. However this was resulting in compatibility issues for employees, additional training requirements, and a reduction in collaboration across the bank. EON Bank decided to transform its IT infrastructure, beginning with applications that staff were using for their day-to-day tasks, and chose to deploy the 2007 Microsoft Office system to eradicate compatibility issues for customers while enabling staff to be more productive. Users have realized shortened times to complete tasks and have benefited from using a familiar interface which is compatible with those of business partners and customers.

SituationThe global economic situation during 2008 and 2009 impacted financial institutions globally, especially banks and capital markets organizations. In Malaysia, the Central Bank tightened regulations and implemented cost controls on all bank operations, which in turn led to local banks initiating cost-cutting measures. One such bank is EON Bank Group (EON Bank), which has 139 branches across Malaysia, close to 6,000 employees and around 1.4 million customers. The bank found itself under pressure to cut costs, but at the same time has ambitious expansion plans which require investment to maintain its position as a customer-focused and relationship-driven financial institution.

Gurdev Singh, Head of Information Technology at EON Bank Group, comments: “We plan to increase our customer base of 1.4 million by being aggressive with product development and market distribution. EON Bank is a consumer-oriented bank and the business is focused on retail banking. Therefore we have to think like our consumers and deliver what they want: convenient and user-friendly interactions.”

The bank reviewed how it used IT. After several discussions, it became

clear that instead of aligning business requirements with the IT mission of the bank, EON Bank had followed a process which resulted in a mixture of systems acquired for specific purposes. This practice can be detrimental in the long-term, as Mr. Gurdev explains: “Vendors sell what they think fits the business and the IT departments are left to piece systems together. When creating solutions without understanding the fundamentals of the client; the end result is often a mix of products to create IT solutions.” One such example was the earlier adoption of OpenOffice on all of the bank’s PCs in an effort to rationalize the IT environment after a number of mergers.

While OpenOffice may have helped in lowering the total cost of ownership in the short term, the problems it created were increasing over time. These included compatibility issues when opening documents from other desktop applications, the need to convert documents, difficulties in training for support teams and the reliance of other vendor systems on the 2007 Microsoft® Office system. These issues led to an inability to create robust workflows and process controls.

Mr. Gurdev says: “Most of the bank’s customers are using Microsoft Office. I had complaints about form subscription errors and misaligned documents; meanwhile

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“Most of the bank’s customers are using Microsoft Office and were calling the bank seeking clarifications on queries which originated from the formatting of letters they received from us.”Gurdev Singh, Head of Information

Technology, EON Bank Group

customers were calling the bank seeking clarifications on queries which originated from the formatting of letters they received from us.”

The bank had deployed the 2007 Office system on a handful of machines for the sole purpose of converting documents to use in OpenOffice. This meant that staff needed to know both suites of applications to effectively convert and understand how to reproduce documents in a customer-friendly format. EON Bank also wanted to introduce shared folders to improve collaboration between teams.

It became clear that EON Bank needed to take action to resolve the issues caused by the desktop applications,

so the IT team investigated deploying the 2007 Office system.

SolutionProductivity is a key focus at the bank and EON Bank required a desktop application suite that was convenient yet highly intuitive, to help improve productivity and increase process efficiencies.

The initial suggestion that EON Bank should migrate to the 2007 Office System, caused some concerns about the anticipated cost of deployment, compatibility issues with legacy software, and training

staff how to use the updated applications within the 2007 Office System. However, the IT team involved Microsoft in educating people at all levels in the bank about the specific benefits the bank would receive from deploying the 2007Office system, and these concerns were quickly eradicated.

The migration was executed in multiple phases over a period of several months. The IT team worked jointly with Microsoft to engage the bank’s senior management, demonstrating the shortcomings of the existing systems and how they could be easily resolved with the use of the 2007 Office system. The management immediately saw the benefits and approved the deployment of the 2007 Office system throughout the bank.

The next step was for the team to work on change management to ensure the planned deployment ran as smoothly as possible for users. The team involved different levels of users in awareness and education sessions, demonstrating how the 2007 Office system can improve business processes and how much more efficient it is compared to OpenOffice.The users quickly appreciated the new functionality within the 2007 Office system, and were happy with the planned migration.

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“My goal is to transform EON Bank’s desktop IT environment with Microsoft Office 2007.”

Gurdev Singh, Head of Information Technology, EON

“My goal is to transform EON Bank’s desktop IT environment with Microsoft Office 2007,” notes Mr. Gurdev. Around 2,000 Microsoft Office 2007 licenses have been deployed in EON Bank and the IT team is well on the way to completing the transformation process.

BenefitsUniform Environment for CollaborationThe deployment of the 2007 Office system as a comprehensive suite of desktop applications familiar to employees and customers ensures that EON Bank has a uniform working environment that encourages collaboration between departments. Different departments within EON Bank can utilize shared folders and dedicated network links, which improves convenience for users.

Collaboration tools available within the 2007 Office system give users the ability to import and export files within the different applications. Tables from Microsoft Office Excel 2007 can be imported into Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 and further enhanced with graphics, and can then be imported into Microsoft Office Word 2007 and adjusted to the required formatting.

The 2007 Office system also improves processes and external communications with EON Bank’s business partners and customers,

as they are more likely to be using the same applications.Increased ProductivityEON Bank is enjoying greater productivity among staff after simplifying operational tasks with convenient functions available in Microsoft Office 2007, for example,improving data visualization with Microsoft office Excel 2007 by replacing multiple reports into a single source to supplement the organization’s data warehouse without compromising the integrity of the source hence allowing all functional business users to have full access to historical and current data for quick planning in their day-to-day business assessment. Mr. Gurdev notes:“Particularly in the case of power users, tasks that used to take three to four hours now only take a fraction of the time with Microsoft Office 2007.”

The unified system means the technical support team can focus on a single suite of applications and quickly address any issue that may arise, which increases their productivity. Removing the need for a processes to bridge the conflicting programs and for training on two desktop productivity suites has also resulted in increased productivity among employees and greater cost efficiencies for the bank.

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Standardized Training Procedures When it comes to training, both basic and power users complete the same courses, with power users then receiving specialized courses. This translates to cost savings as the specialized classes can focus on the more complex requirements of people working in specific roles. By giving everyone the same base training and skill sets, collaboration between departments is also improved. Along with using a standard office productivity suite, the training has also improved morale among staff.

Improved Security FeaturesEON Bank receives a full set of security features from using Active Directory to manage shared folders. There is also scope to further improve security when the bank initiates the deployment of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 in the near future.

Microsoft Office SystemThe Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to: www.microsoft.com/office

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Eon Bank Berhad products and services, call +603 26161133 or visit the Web site at: www.eonbank.com.my

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published January 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Office System

− Microsoft Office Professional 2007

− Microsoft Office Excel 2007

− Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007

− Microsoft Office Word 2007