DATA VIZ IPAD APP IMPROVES AMERICA FIRST’S PERFORMANCE

According to Efraim Turban (Efraim Turban, 2013) “Data visualization, or data viz, is the gathering of complicated information into readable graphics”. This is a term used to display massive amounts of data in a structured and systematic way which is reader friendly and lets the manager drill down to details of the rendered information. America First Credit Union is a member-owned, nonprofit financial institution which is the 11^th largest credit union in the U.S and has more than 100 full service location. This financial institution founded in 1939 had an issue while presenting massive data pertaining to market position, risks, performance etc. to the executives in a concise and cost effective way. This led the America First to use data visualization apps which could be accessed from portable mobile devices. In 2010 due to the economic recession, the bank lost more than $ 9.1 million as a result of which there were massive spending cuts and in late 2010 they started replacing laptops with iPads which were half the price of a laptop and also the $25 service fees was significantly lesser than the service plans for laptops. The change started at the top level with the chief financial officer, network manager and the controller replacing their laptops with iPads.

                The main challenges that the executives at America First Credit Union faced were the presentation of the data for analysis and decision making. The pdf’s of information dense excel sheets were emailed to the executives and there was delays in interpreting the data due to the versioning, data format and visualization. The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) needed all credit unions to undergo an examination which could provide the data regarding the performance, monitoring, auditing and risk factors which could eventually help the company to manage risks. To understand the internal controls to manage risks the managers needed a comprehensive view of all the associated risks, a view of how the risks were changing and also a concise view on how they were accessing risk. The main reasons to adopt mobile based data visualization tools were 1) The mobile interface was user friendly and did not need any formal training, 2) The financial reports can be formatted to be viewable on mobile screens and is portable, 3) This solution was cost effective and half the price of a conventional solution on a notebook. 4) Huge amounts of data could be handles with content rich displays 5) Using an iPad enabled users to leverage the existing functionality with the devices such as the security features (read biometrics), hand gestures, specialized portrait and landscape views, touch screen feature etc. The projected benefits included: 1) Easy understanding of different types of risks and cost across geographies, 2) Improve the decision taking ability due to the availability of business intelligence, 3) Easy understanding of the overall health of the credit union with regards to any projected risks or existing assessments. After testing several free versions of mobile visualization tools, the company zeroed in on Roambi designed by app maker MeLLmo and in July 2011, the company rolled out the enterprise version to 47 users who used iPads. The main advantage with the adoption of Roambi was that it was inexpensive and could be easily interfaced with Oracle’s Essbase.

                The mobile app based visualization system was a hit at America First Credit Union because it provided a lot of additional features such as heat maps which depicted performance based on the geographical area, size etc. The software was scalable and with the introduction of cloud there was no necessity of buying any hardware except the iPad itself. The software could also be integrated easily with the data silos like IBM, SAP, Oracle, Box, Salesforce etc. The managers receive the most current data financial assessments as soon as the data was compiled. Additionally the managers could use the tool to check the business opportunities and the performance of a particular location or branch. The software used the latest industry standard security like the 256 bit AES and protocols such as SSL 3.0/TSL 1.0. The distribution of these reports could be controlled with user file permissions and it could also be integrated with single sign on and SiteMinder etc. This mobile app provide three main feature which are Analytics – which converts documents into content rich displays, Cardex – (Efraim Turban, 2013)“This features users pull up and flip through pages of reports, for example, to view sales by region or market segment. These reports can be swiped, tapped, or zoomed to drill down into the data, change time frames, or manipulate data” and Flow – which  renders visualization  into reports.