Citigroup analysts evolve to Web-based data analysis

Financial analysts in Citigroup's Global Consumer Businesses division will soon analyze and distribute data via the Web, improving business intelligence performance and saving money while insuring against the Y2K bug.

Citigroup previously relied on skilled operators to generate expense data and business unit performance reports via dumb terminals hooked to a 12-year-old, Y2K-incompliant system. Reports were then distributed to analysts on paper.

Citigroup is now installing Viador's E-Portal suite, a thin-client, Y2K-compliant system that incorporates full search & analysis capabilities and integration with Citigroup's other data systems.

Now, Citigroup analysts can drill down through data to assess business unit productivity and efficiency, in order to support better decision making and more accurate forecasting. That information can be distributed immediately as Viador reports, or exported as Microsoft Excel or as Adobe PDF documents.

With the new data analysis portal, Citigroup "can give our analysts around the world the business information tools they need," at a low cost of ownership, according to Citigroup CIO S. Ramakrishnan