Acxiom Brings Enterprise-Wide Customer Management Solution to Financial Institutions
CONWAY, Ark.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 24, 1999--
Solvitur(SM) Customer Information Management System (CIMS i8.0) integrates capabilities from Acxiom, Compaq(R), Sedona
and Information Advantage
Acxiom(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: ACXM) today announced the expansion of its solution offering to financial institutions. Historically, Acxiom has provided data, data integration, database technology and marketing applications under the Solvitur(SM) brand as an integrated market management solution. Solvitur has offered expandable, open architecture and customizable tools to several industries.
Today Acxiom introduces Solvitur(SM) Customer Information Management System (CIMS i8.0) for Financial Institutions. CIMS provides financial institutions with a predefined suite of software, query data, database creation, profitability analysis and promotion management tools. Unlike other systems, CIMS helps financial institutions acquire, retain and maximize their most profitable customers through the distribution of detailed account, customer and household information enterprise-wide - directly to all customer contact points in the financial institution. CIMS will be available June 1, 1999.
CIMS is accessible to the client in-house through local LAN/WAN technology, over Intranet, or via the Internet using browser-based technology. It is operated in-house as departmental or client server-based software. Because information is made available through out the organization, it allows users for the first time an ability to incorporate this information into everyday activities and increase the informed personal touch so important in financial services. Importantly, however, the CIMS solution does not interrupt nor require modification of current transaction processing systems, and new lines of business, or new acquisitions can be added quickly into the database.
According to Greg Bjorndahl, division marketing leader for financial services, "CIMS is a part of Acxiom's overall strategy to enhance our offering to the financial services industry. Acxiom customers can achieve more effective customer relationship management through the ability to access information from all applications within the institution - as well as external information - something they have not been able to do before."
"All personnel can have access to information about the entire relationship at their fingertips without expensive and time consuming conversion of basic processing systems. They can also incorporate valuable external indicators, and the amount of information accessible can be easily tailored to an individual without expensive software programming down to the workstation level."
To accomplish this, CIMS incorporates the use of Acxiom's proprietary key management system known as AcxiKey(SM) and defined user access to external information through the Acxiom Data Network(TM).
To support the expansive functionality of CIMS, Acxiom has selected Compaq(R) Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) as its hardware partner. Together the companies have identified tailored ProLiant(TM) server configurations to support the needs of various sized CIMS financial clients. Additionally, Compaq's CAREPAQ Service offerings will provide CIMS clients with on-site support for their ProLiant systems.
CIMS is able to provide clients with enterprise-wide reporting and information distribution through Information Advantage's (Nasdaq: IACO) front-end browser-based capability, known as MyEureka!. This browser enables non-technical users to point-and-click their way to relevant information in reports, documents, URLs and applications through a secure, organized and personalized intranet/extranet access.
"MyEureka! marks an important milestone for both Information Advantage and the business intelligence market", said Larry Ford, president and CEO of Information Advantage. "The core part of our joint efforts with Acxiom is to improve the speed and quality of decision making and fundamentally change the way clients deliver and use information."
CIMS also incorporates Sedona Software's SpatialVision(TM). "When integrated with CIMS, SpatialVision enables the CIMS user to interpret data more easily by having the information automatically displayed graphically versus in text or data formats," said Bjorndahl.
Colin Matthews, President of Sedona, a division of Scangraphics, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCNG), stated, "By displaying visually-enhanced geographic information on maps, Acxiom's clients will be able to manage data better, provide visual decision support information, support planning and be able to easily distribute and view the information across the entire enterprise. CIMS fits extremely well with our vision and direction to develop and deploy web enabled business solutions that offer benefits to users throughout the enterprise."
"We positioned this package as a well-defined alternative to the highly customized solutions which Acxiom is noted for at the high end of the market. Our core business has and remains data collection and data delivery. With the announcement of CIMS i8.0 as part of our overall solution, known as Solvitur, we have expanded the breath of financial institutions to which our services apply," said Jim Womble, division leader for financial services. |
