Accenture Information

Management Services

Accenture performance analytics

solution for banking
Driving high performance by aligning management
decisions with company strategy
Compelling research from the Accenture Institute for High • Ensures data integrity throughout
the enterprise because the solution
Performance found that high-performance businesses have acts as a single data pipeline across
a much higher analytical orientation than other organizations.1 business lines, divisions and
According to the research, approximately 10 percent of geographies.
company executives (15 percent of executives in high- • Enables greater budget process
efficiency because data can be easily
performance businesses) view their analytical capability as manipulated, collected and exported
a key element of their strategy. But nearly every organization to commonly used spreadsheet
aspires to use analytics more effectively and expects to invest applications such as Microsoft Excel.
to upgrade analytical capabilities significantly over • Reduces reporting cycle times
the next five years. and speeds up budget preparation
through an automated series of
Financial institutions struggle to can lead to proper execution of the individual dashboards, scorecards,
measure business performance across strategy. Banks can measure any reports, drill-down screens
the enterprise because they suffer from metrics—such as sales, operational and alerts.
multiple versions of the “truth.” Data efficiency or customer satisfaction—
is generated, collected and presented that they believe are vital to support Why the solution
inconsistently and in piecemeal fashion. their strategic goals. The solution
The performance manager in Germany enables CEOs to translate those is different
may use different data sources, goals into more concrete targets for While many business intelligence and
terminology and metrics than her individual subunits, and then monitor performance-management tools are
counterpart in Italy to establish high the actual data coming in against available to gauge how a business is
performance for her company. those targets. A dynamic system performing against its objectives, they
Budgeting becomes extremely difficult of Web-enabled dashboards and lack the ability to integrate the
when the CFO is at the mercy of a scorecards enhance communication planning, forecasting and budgeting
plethora of systems that produce and coordination and alert executives process. Traditional stand-alone tools
too many contradictory reports to take action if targets are not offer reporting capabilities for an
with unreliable data. being met. individual business line such as retail
banking or merchant banking, forcing
Banks that fail to standardize reporting The Accenture Performance Analytics CFOs and their financial departments
processes incur higher costs and Solution for Banking is intended for to sort through dozens of spreadsheets
paralyze the finance department from use by CEOs and CFOs, as well as and e-mails from each business line,
providing strategic advice to the CEO heads of business lines or departments. which results in time wasted in
and business lines. The role of a CFO is The solution is particularly useful in reconciling inconsistent data and
evolving from being that of a financial the budgeting process. Effective hunting for missing reports. What’s
manager to one of a business advisor, planning, budgeting and forecasting more, as the data is not current, banks
but inconsistent data flows from processes are essential to achieve an are typically able to publish strategy
multiple pipelines makes it difficult integrated enterprise performance maps only quarterly or yearly.
for the CFO to fulfill this objective. management capability. Banks can
set targets, analyze data and prepare The Accenture Performance Analytics
Accenture developed the Accenture Solution for Banking offers banks the
budgets using a single set of rules
Performance Analytics Solution for ability to manage performance on a
tailored to the bank’s specific needs.
Banking to help financial institutions bankwide basis. The entire process of
measure performance by linking the Accenture believes that organizations planning, forecasting, budgeting and
execution of management decisions have a real opportunity to create entering actual budget figures is
to the business strategy. The solution greater shareholder value by linking integrated into a single package that
is built on Microsoft Performance strategic and financial planning with all departments of the bank can use.
Point Server 2007, an integrated forecasting processes, and by With all the figures coming from the
performance-management application integrating them with the right same system, CFOs have a single
that allows decision makers to analyze, metrics, reporting and analytics. version of the “truth.” Multiple reports
plan and monitor their business across containing unreliable data are replaced
the entire organization. Key benefits with a single Web-based system
Ensuring that strategic goals are, in The Accenture Performance Analytics supporting a uniform data set.
fact, being executed upon, CEOs can Solution for Banking: Additionally, static data is replaced
visualize how different value drivers with dynamic reporting. CFOs using
• Helps align management decisions the Accenture solution can review or
link with the bank’s objectives through
with the company’s strategy because pull data on a monthly or even weekly
a strategy map, which provides
the CEO’s targets are relayed to lower basis if they desire.
transparency on how these drivers
levels via an automated process.
Walk into the C-suite of almost
any financial institution and
you will hear these concerns
being voiced:
• How can I ensure management
decisions are aligned with my
bank’s strategy?
• Why is my budget process
taking so long and why does
it seem to add so little value?
• How can I visualize the linkage
between the value drivers and
the high-level company
objectives?
• Where is value being created
in my bank; where is it being
destroyed?
Unlike traditional solutions, the
Accenture Performance Analytics
Solution for Banking also highlights
trouble spots requiring immediate
management attention. For example,
suppose that the CEO’s expansion
strategy is to increase the branch
network by 5 percent. Midway through
the year, the CEO checks his scorecard
and sees that the branch expansion
category is highlighted with a red light,
indicating a problem. He clicks on the
tab and discovers branches have only
increased 2 percent year-to-date.
With this kind of at-your-fingertips
data, senior management can address
issues much more quickly than with
traditional data management tools.
Other advantages:
• Comprises the Accenture Enterprise
Performance Management
Framework—a standardized approach
to structuring management
processes—that supports a
consistent, standardized, shared
understanding of enterprise
performance management processes.
• Leverages Accenture’s technological
proficiency and its strategic alliances
with Microsoft and other leading
vendors of enterprise performance
management solutions.
How the solution works
At year end, say the CEO of the
hypothetical Best Bank, a leading
global financial institution, identifies
several strategic initiatives for the
following year. But before setting
targets for the coming year, he wants
to see estimated results from the year
that has just ended.
Turning to the dashboard on his
home page, he quickly views net profits
for private banking, retail banking,
insurance and other business lines.
Status boxes next to each business
line are colored green (in good shape),
yellow (warning—may need attention)
or red (needs attention). He also scans
the global scorecard to compare actual
income and expenses against forecasts.
Next, he checks the strategy map on
the dashboard to see the links between
different performance indicators.
Glancing at the year-to-date balanced
scorecard, he notes that next year’s
return-on-equity target should be
more ambitious. He drills down further
and sees a yellow light next to net
revenues, indicating that slower-than-
expected revenue growth is hindering
net profit targets. Slicing the data by
business line, he notes that retail
banking is the most profitable.
Armed with sufficient insight into
Best Bank’s performance, the CEO’s
office sets targets for next year (23
percent increase in net profits; 12
percent reduction in expenses, and so
on). To do this, he uses a template that
allows him to fill out the targets via
the familiar Excel interface. This
information is then stored centrally
and available companywide.
Continuing the top-down budget
preparation process, the CFO receives
an alert from the CEO that next year’s
targets have arrived. In an effort to
expand the targets into more detail,
she opens her CFO dashboard to
analyze performance figures by
geography, business line, time period
and other categories (all of which she
exports from her browser to Excel for
easy viewing).
The CFO’s office now allocates the
CEO’s targets to the various businesses
via Excel. The workflow that was set up
beforehand automatically notifies the
global performance managers of these
respective businesses that they have
received targets for next year. The
global performance managers consult
their own home pages, review various
reports to get a clear view of the data
and then further refine the targets
by their business lines; they, in turn,
define their targets down to the local
performance managers.
Having received an automatic alert
from the global performance manager
that next year’s targets have been
published, the local performance
managers now start the bottom-up
budgeting process. Armed with the
CEO’s targets defined for her entity,
the head of retail banking in for
example, Belgium knows that she has
to increase profits by 12 percent and
cut expenses by 10 percent next year.
Logging into her home page, she
develops her budget in Excel and sends
it to her global performance manager,
who reviews the budgets of all his local
performance managers.
The global performance managers
can see at a glance on their homepage
which local managers have yet to
submit their budgets. When finished,
the global performance managers
modify the budgets as needed and
send along to the CFO, thus completing
the cycle. Using the solution, the CEO
knows that his targets have reached
all levels of the bank, and that the
budget he gets back reflects those
targets. And, a process that used to
take months now takes just a matter
of weeks.
The Accenture advantage
Accenture is a leader in business
intelligence. Since the early 1990s,
Accenture has helped hundreds of
clients in all industries around the
world get the most out of their
information and achieve business
performance. The company has
continually refined its insights and
practices to deliver the information
management solutions that support
business strategy. Accenture’s
information management
professionals work with industry
specialists to develop new industry-
specific strategies leveraging
maturing analytics capabilities to
help our clients undertake smart
data analysis to maximize value.
1
Source: Davenport, Thomas H. and Jeanne G.
Harris, “Competing on Analytics: The New Science
of Winning,” Harvard Business School Press,
March 2007.
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Copyright © 2008 Accenture For more information about how

All rights reserved. Accenture can help your organization
achieve high performance through
Accenture, its logo, and use of the Accenture Performance
High Performance Delivered Analytics Solution for Banking,
are trademarks of Accenture. please contact:
Omer Sohail
senior director-Accenture
omer.sohail@accenture.com