INDUSTRY

UK's Largest Independent Commercial Finance Company Selects Information Builders' Business Intelligence Solution as Standard for Management Reporting -- Information Builders, the leader in enterprise business intelligence (BI) and real-time Web reporting, has announced that GMAC (U.K.) Commercial Finance, the leading independent commercial finance company, has standardized its business intelligence reporting activities on Information Builders' flagship WebFOCUS software. GMAC Commercial Finance chose Information Builders as its corporate standard, over other BI vendors, citing WebFOCUS as a more complete, better-integrated, and cost-efficient solution. According to Martin Charman, IT director at GMAC Commercial Finance plc, the company's initial motivation was to consolidate data from disparate sources into a central reporting structure. "We needed to be able to pull financial information from a number of different systems in different geographical locations and deliver consistent and accurate reports to the company's management teams in the U.K., Canada, and the U.S.," Charman said. "We selected Information Builders' WebFOCUS because it provided the most integrated and complete solution, at a cost significantly below its competitors." GMAC Commercial Finance provides receivables finance, asset-based lending, equipment finance, structured finance, and invoice discounting services to a wide variety of clients, from small to medium enterprises to billion dollar organizations. Across offices in the U.K., Canada, and U.S., the company has a staff of 900 serving roughly 1,200 clients worldwide and is the largest independent commercial finance company in its market. Using Information Builders' WebFOCUS and ETL Manager, GMAC Commercial Finance has significantly increased the speed at which month-end reports are produced, as well as the accuracy of the reports, enabling more informed and timely decision-making. "Month-end reports used to be completed around the third week of the month, now they can be done in two hours from the final input of data," Charman said. "The new system has also helped to expose and sort bad or inaccurate data from the source systems enabling us to further ensure the accuracy of reports." Charman added, "Management accounting staff can now spend less time putting together reports and focus more on projections for the future. The new implementation has also enabled us to reduce the backlog of ad hoc requests by providing an easy to use and secure self-service interface for eligible staff via the company's intranet." Information Builders' U.K. Managing Director Jim Irving welcomed the announcement, "WebFOCUS has really improved the efficiency, speed, and accuracy of reporting at GMAC, and it is a great accolade that, in recognition of this success, and as one of the largest independent commercial finance services companies in the world, it has selected WebFOCUS as its business intelligence standard."