Case Studies

Bank Case Study

See how a top-10 US Bank leveraged iLumen's iDEA™ Data Platform and Portfolio ConnectionT reporting tool to gain efficiencies in business intelligence and discover opportunities within their existing customer base.

The challenge: In the current economic environment, banks are forced to do more with less. Understanding that it is easier to keep and service an existing customer than to gain a new customer, this bank was looking for ways to efficiently mine its customer base for opportunities. In addition, they wanted to improve operational efficiencies in creating customized "pitch books" for these opportunities - processes that were taking multiple man-hours per customer.

The solution: The top-10 bank looked to iLumen for help. Utilizing the iDEA™ Data Platform, the bank was able to pull in data from their existing Moody's MFA credit platform efficiently and in real-time as that data was updated. iLumen's Portfolio ConnectionT mines that data and reports on it, allowing for profiling of customers and easy identification of opportunities.

The benefit: According to The Tower Group, the top trends in Commercial Lending Platforms today are:

  1. Do More with Less — Bankers faced with expanded portfolio management & monitoring workloads
  2. Back to the Basics — Return to traditional underwriting, standardization of policies, consistent processes.
  3. Centralize the Platform — Focus on consolidating disparate departments, disparate data, specialized applications.
  4. Improve Operational inefficiencies — Reduce redundant, manual tasks & duplicate data entry. Standardize disparate policies, servicing, & workflow.

iLumen's iDEA™ Data Platform and Portfolio ConnectionT products were able to automate the collection of data from a platform that was being under-utilized. Consolidating that data, along with other internal sources of data, now allows the Relationship Managers within the bank to see a "complete view" of the customer. User-defined searching, profiling and aggregation across this bank's 50,000+ customer base was impossible before iLumen provided the solution. In addition, Portfolio Connection's customizable reporting capabilities allowed for customer -specific reports to be generated in seconds.

CPA Case Study

See how one of the nation's top CPA firms have brought the entire iLumen product suite to bear as a standard audit practice for their entire firm.

The Challenge: Although many CPA firms enjoyed historic growth in the early part of this decade the general downturn in the economy has resulted in greater fee pressures from clients creating a need to win new business and differentiate the firm. The industry is also experiencing consolidation, resulting in larger firms that are not able to properly leverage the data they possess to best serve their clients. Business clients want to know that CPA Firms actually understand their business and can relate to the challenges of their management teams.

One firm sought to differentiate themselves and demonstrate their value to their business clients, while using their increased size as a benefit. Their goals were to leverage existing data for opportunity identification, gain efficiencies in their audit processes, and build a data flow between their clients and the firm throughout the year allowing them to be proactive with their "A-list" clients.

The solution: The firm used iLumen's Integrated Solutions as standard practices for their nationwide firm. The iDEA™ Data Platform was installed to automate data flow from their existing Trial Balance history, unlocking years of financial history for their clients and efficiently mapping it to industry standards. Portfolio ConnectionT and Customer ConnectionT were also enabled to for reporting and data flow from the clients.

The Benefit: Portfolio ConnectionT has helped the firm gain efficiencies throughout the firm, but particularly in the audit practice. In fact, one partner stated that, with the new iLumen platform, "100% of the audit planning tasks are automated". In addition, iDEA allows the firm to leverage resources across multiple offices, standardizing data in a way never seen before for the firm. Clients can be sorted by industry, partner, and office and industry practices are able to disseminate best practices to the entire firm through Portfolio Connection's customized reporting capabilities.

iLumen's Customer ConnectionT self-service web portal has also allowed the firm to collect data directly from their clients on a monthly basis. This interim view of data allows the firm to gain key insights into financial performance throughout the year, not only for identifying new opportunities for the firm, but also gaining efficiencies by spreading audit work out through the year.

Industry Association Case Study

See how one industry association has used iLumen to allow their members to anonymously share and compare financial data in a challenging economic market.

The Challenge: The economic environment has affected all businesses, but particularly the manufacturing industry. One group of manufacturers and their industry association recognized that now, more than ever, allowing companies to see their data trended and compared to others in their peer group throughout the year was key to staying competitive.

The Solution:The association has purchased iLumen's Customer ConnectionT web platform to allow their members to anonymously contribute data to a Benchmarking database comprised of member companies and other companies from the iLumen Financial Network.

The Benefit:iLumen's Customer ConnectionT web portal provides a platform for members to easily upload data to a common reporting standard. Members can trend their own financial information over time with views into the data focusing on industry specific metrics, as well as allowing for key operational inputs. As they upload their own data, they are able to compare it to other members in an anonymous, aggregated way seeing how the compare in "real time" throughout the year. Members have found that not only is the data critical to stay competitive, but also have used the platform to efficiently report on data for internal purposes.