Investec banks on Essbase

Investec Bank has been using Oracle Essbase to consolidate and analyse figures from various financial systems for the past 12 years. The bank has found Essbase to be a stable and reliable platform to support its financial staff in consolidating financial data and providing fast reports built according to the company's unique requirements.

Investec is an international, specialist banking group that provides a diverse range of financial products and services to a niche client base in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia, as well as other geographies.

Oracle Essbase is an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) server that provides an environment for deploying pre-packaged applications or developing custom analytic and enterprise performance management applications. It supports rapid application development and empowers users to quickly model complex business scenarios such as forecasting, scenario modelling, and "what if" type analyses.

Investec's Angela Ferguson explains that the bank needs custom applications written for it to ensure it can obtain accurate consolidated information from its financials for further analysis. In this regard, the bank has a long track record using Essbase and Intellient as a service provider. “Essbase skills are in short supply in South Africa and this has proved to be a problem in the past; however, we are now able to get the service, support and skills we need from Intellient,” she says.

“Intellient has been with us for the long haul. We always evaluate other systems, suppliers and service providers when planning to buy more components or expand our current usage, but Intellient and Essbase have been found to be superior on multiple grounds on every occasion.”

Ease of use has been a major component of Essbase's long life at Investec, as well as its customisability. “The Essbase customisation is excellent,” adds Ferguson. “The product lends itself to as many changes as is required, without affecting the performance or the underlying reliability of the system. You can almost do anything you want with it.”

The business environment at Investec is challenging and excellent end-to-end support and service is demanded from all the organisation's service providers. Intellient is no exception and has been able to meet Investec's support, development and product requirements over the years and remains the preferred supplier. The service provider has extended its value offering to Investec by providing training while components of the bank's applications are built, ensuring a faster and smoother roll-out.

Oracle's merger with Hyperion was an unexpected surprise for Investec, but Ferguson notes that it turned out to be advantageous for the bank. With Oracle, the product has a broader support base and redefined the products' strategic direction, which helps clients in their own strategic planning. Moreover, Investec has been an end-to-end JD Edwards user for the last 15 years.

"Investec has made a name for itself in the banking industry by remaining ahead of the pack and producing sterling results over the years," says Marc Scheepbouwer, MD of Intellient. "Investing its intellectual capital in systems such as its Essbase applications plays a part in keeping the bank on the leading edge in the South African and international financial markets."