Customers

Commerce Bank

"Business Objects Knowledge Accelerator is a relevant, convenient, and cost-effective training solution."

Joni Stonestreet
database analyst
Commerce Bank

Background

Founded in 1865, Commerce Bank is a super-community bank that offers an array of sophisticated financial products for individuals, businesses, and investors. Currently operating in 330 locations throughout Missouri, Kansas, and Illinois, Commerce employs a workforce of nearly 5,000 people.

The Commerce Bank management philosophy empowers individual locations to deliver targeted services based on local customers' needs. Even though all branches offer all services, each branch has the authority to target and promote specific services and products based on local demographics. Thus, while one branch may deal primarily with personal checking and savings products, another branch may focus on commercial loans, merchant services, or municipal investments.

As a result of these locally targeted product and service offerings, Commerce Bank's data warehouse became filled with massive amounts of detailed data that was difficult to analyze or access. So, in 2002, Commerce Bank embarked upon the Customer Information Initiative (CII) project. The goal of this project was to restructure the data warehouse so it could best meet the data needs of all business units within the organization. As part of this project, Commerce Bank recognized the need for a robust reporting tool to sit on top of its revitalized banking data warehouse. After a thorough review of several products, Commerce Bank chose to implement a business intelligence (BI) solution from Business Objects.

Challenge

As part of the CII project, key employees throughout the institution's three-state region would need to be trained on the new reporting system. "In the past," reports Joni Stonestreet, a database analyst at Commerce Bank, "The approach was to create an instructor-led curriculum and travel from one centralized location to the next, teaching employees from a particular region. This approach was extremely expensive because it required everyone to travel and to take time off from their daily duties. And because we were teaching large groups, we had to stay very generic. I couldn't necessarily cover the precise information required by employees from a specific business unit."

Further, Stonestreet noted that the instructor-led model presented other challenges as well. For instance, new trainings were required each time a product was upgraded or a new phase of a project was rolled out.

Approach

To maximize rapid ROI and assure the success of the overall BI deployment, Commerce Bank sought a more cost-effective and customizable training solution that could:

"It was obvious," says Stonestreet, "that the most effective training would feature relevant examples and job-specific scenarios that trainees could easily place in the context of their current duties." To that end, Commerce Bank chose to train employees using the BusinessObjects Knowledge Accelerator-a completely customizable, web-delivered training and support program.

But before customization of training modules could begin, Stonestreet interviewed market managers and line-of-business specialists. Her goal was to uncover the specific types of data and reports that were most pertinent to individual business units and job functions. The developers used this information to integrate job-specific examples, scenarios, data, and reports into training materials designed for different lines of business.

In addition to unique business unit needs, Stonestreet also identified several user groupings: 1) report consumers, 2) report writers, 3) power users, and 4) line-of-business support people. Curricula have been further customized to address the training requirements of these groups as well.

Results

After testing a BusinessObjects Knowledge Accelerator pilot program on the company's intranet with more than 100 users, Stonestreet reports that Commerce Bank will be able to train large numbers of people in a very short period of time. "We will maximize the effectiveness of our trainings," says Stonestreet, "while minimizing the amount of time required to prepare the curricula and take the classes." In the past, employees were often forced to defer important matters in order to attend trainings. After the web-based, self-paced trainings are rolled out company-wide, employees will get trained when and where their schedules allow. Additionally, through the consistent use of job-specific examples, user understanding will be higher, frustration lower. And if an employee needs to take a refresher course or spend extra time on a particular module, they will be able to; because Commerce Bank owns the material and makes it available around the clock, employees are free to return to the course whenever they feel the need. Finally, because BusinessObjects Knowledge Accelerator enables any organization to integrate new software enhancements into the curricula as it is rolled out, employees will always be able to train on the latest functionality.

"Compared to the instructor-led trainings of the past," Stonestreet concludes, "BusinessObjects Knowledge Accelerator is an extremely affordable and effective way to get-and keep-our wide range of users up to speed."

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