IBM and business intelligence software developer Cognos have teamed up to create a package of software and hardware aimed at the financial services industry.
The Cognos-IBM Risk Adjusted Profitability Blueprint, announced Aug. 22, is geared toward helping companies—mainly banks—better integrate risk information with revenue and expense planning data.
The goal: to help banks maximize risk-adjusted return on capital, striking a better balance between aggressively expanding their businesses and controlling risk exposure.
Risk factors for banks include risk-adjusted return on capital and economic capital, probability of default, loss given default, and expected loss.
Essentially a performance management framework, the Profitability Blueprint is designed to enable banks to build “precise multidimensional product-level profitability plans and forecasts that are aligned with risk management strategies,” according to a release describing the new bundle.
Click here to read about the Cognos Customer Segment Performance Blueprint for the banking industry.
The co-developed blueprint combines Cognos 8 Planning and Cognos 8 Business Intelligence with IBM Banking Data Warehouse. It also brings in financial services expertise garnered through IBM Global Business Services.
Overall, the combined reporting environment includes functionality for integrated risk-adjusted planning and forecasting across multiple dimensions with built-in risk factors. Also included are activity-based management and costing for customer, product and business segments, which provide profitability planning and reporting data.
A multidimensional scenario-planning module incorporates activity costs—data that allows users to compare the financial impact of several business options and take action.
The Profitability Blueprint, available now, is not the first bank-related Blueprint Cognos has developed. The company also developed blueprints for branch performance, corporate and retail banking, customer segment performance, and insurance product profitability
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