Logo Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft (Schweiz) AG

The Client 

Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft (Schweiz) AG is the “Private Bank” of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, one of the largest financial groups in the world. Its headquarters are in Zurich and it has a subsidiary bank and two other subsidiaries (Family Office of the Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft AG and IMAP M&A Consultants AG) in Frankfurt am Main and Mannheim. With assets of around twelve billion Swiss francs under management, it is one of the largest and most powerful private banks in Germany and the second largest German-owned private bank in Switzerland.

Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft Schweiz AG in Zurich - Picture1
Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft Schweiz AG Building- Picture 2

Solution Overview

  • Sector: Finance

  • Departments: Executive management, Finances and Controlling, Sales

  • Region: Zurich (Switzerland)

  • Data sources: Avaloq and other systems

  • Used technology: Qlik Sense

  • ROI & Time-to-Value:

    3 person days for the development and provision of an initial prototype
    Implementation project from approx. 4 months to initially going live bank-wide
    3 person months less time spent for the finance and controlling department

The Initial situation

Inadequate analysis options for Avaloq data 

The private bank has been using an analysis solution to evaluate data for sales purposes for several years. However, the solution could no longer meet the increased requirements of the financial institution.
“With the old solution, only relatively inflexible analyses were possible. Also, the users had to have the necessary data set compiled by IT,” says Thomas Wagner, Chief Financial Officer of Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft (Schweiz) AG. “Self-service BI was impossible. The sales managers had to have their required analyses manually implemented in Excel by my team.” 

New BI software was sought. In particular, the bank expected greater flexibility for ad hoc analyses and higher data consistency. In addition, it particularly wanted to give sales staff quick and easy access to evaluations of company data from Avaloq and other sources using self-service BI. 

The Solution

Intuitive data analytics with Qlik Sense

A number of alternative solutions were evaluated. The Frankfurter Bankgesellschaft opted for the analysis and reporting solution Qlik Sense and the impressively highly qualified IT service provider Informatec, a certified Qlik Elite Solution Provider and Specialised Partner for the financial industry with extensive BI and industry experience. “It was also important for us to have a partner on site,” adds Wagner. “After all, the quality of a project depends heavily on mutual understanding, which can be more efficiently and effectively established in personal contact than just by phone or email.”
Qlik Sense impressed the bankers with its high analytical flexibility, intuitive usability and wide range of visualisations.

Within three days, two Informatec BI consultants developed an initial prototype together with the private bank. “Due to the iterative approach during the implementation process, we acquired a wealth of Qlik-Sense knowledge. We are now able to develop the solution without external consultants,” reports Wagner.

In the meantime, around ten applications of between four and ten data sheets each are used by employees from the sales and finance and controlling divisions as well as by members of the executive board. The focus is on specific analyses for sales controlling. The key performance indicators (KPIs) include assets under management, customer volume and net new money.

Areas of application and benefits

Delighted Clients

The solution has been very well received by the employees. “Delighted would be an understatement,” says Wagner. “Above all, they liked the fact that Qlik is intuitive to use and it is really fun to work with the software. The acceptance among the around 35 users is correspondingly high.” In addition, the Finance and Controlling department now has a reduced workload: due to the lack of self-service BI they used to attend to the analysis requirements of colleagues from the sales department. Wagner estimates that around three person months are saved annually in time saved for analyses by using Qlik Sense in his department.

The Future

Expansion of the application landscape 

Due to the successful Qlik Sense launch, the Frankfurt bank is intensifying its use of the solution. The automated creation and distribution of standard reports is currently being implemented via the Qlik extension NPrinting, such as the monthly management summary for the overall sales and the associated organisational units. In addition, the development of further applications for other areas of the Swiss parent company is planned, for example for internal financial reporting and customer relationship management. Furthermore, the solution is currently being rolled out for sales controlling in the German subsidiary of the private bank.

SUMMARY

  • The Challenge

    To replace the manually complex, inflexible analysis process with an analysis and reporting solution for ad hoc analyses, standard reporting and self-service business intelligence (BI).

  • The Solution

    Implementation of Qlik Sense, linking of the Avaloq banking system and provision of around ten applications for approx. 35 employees from finance, controlling and sales as well as for members of the executive board

  • The Advantages 

    • broad acceptance among employees
    • transparent causal relationships due to data visualisation
    • ad hoc analyses and standard reporting 
    • independent use of the applications in the specialist departments
    • flexible granularity of analyses