Adobe Success Story

Intelligent documents at work
Based in Parma, Italy, Cedacri is a leading IT provider for financial institutions. With a turnover of €150 million in 2005, 550 employees, and a clientele of more than 60 banks, Cedacri is a market leader in IT services in Italy.

Cedacri’s client base is represented by Europe’s largest banking sector; small-and medium-sized banks. In order to achieve economies of scale, these smaller banks tend to outsource key services.

Rapid changes in the banking sector are prompting Cedacri to adopt new ways of doing business.

Several factors are driving the rapid pace of change:

• Increased complexity—The evolution of the financial services sector is bringing with it increasing complexity (e.g. European legislation and anti-laundering safe guards). As a consequence, banks are constantly searching for innovative and more efficient IT solutions that can better address business issues while containing costs.
• Consolidation—Consolidation creates larger and more complex financial institutions with broader product portfolios, wider geographical coverage, and more business lines. This considerably increases the requirements and complexity of IT systems.
• Greater Competition—Increased competition continues to impact banking margins, forcing banks to rethink IT strategies and turn to innovative outsourced solutions in order to control costs and facilitate new revenue opportunities. Banks also have to compete harder to gain and retain customers who have more banking choices than ever.
• Regulations—New regulations often require significant IT investment. Like other financial institutions around the world, Italian banks must invest in new technologies in order to comply with new requirements.

In this dynamic environment, banks are re-evaluating all aspects of their operations. Even routine activities such as generating and distributing banking statements and other customer-facing documents are being revamped to support more efficient, personalized services.

Benefits

• Achieve full ROI in less than two years
• Frees up to 13 people from manual tasks
• Improve quality of banking documents
• Enhance customer services
• Reduce errors due to fewer manual processes
• Reduce costs within the banks that adopt the solution

Project Details

Standardizing on Adobe LiveCycle solutions
As a major service provider in the Italian banking market, one of Cedacri’s services is designing, customizing, and managing forms as well as the ultimate printing of bank statements. Cedacri wanted to move to a solution that easily generates visually appealing bank contracts, statements, and other forms to its clients. The goal was to provide more consistently branded documents, eliminate formatting errors, and create dynamic forms that could automate previous paper-based processes. Cedacri selected Adobe LiveCycle solutions for several reasons:

• Eliminate formatting errors—The many banks serviced by Cedacri use a variety of technologies. Cedacri wanted to eliminate the problems associated with different document formats and templates by using a standard file type that could be used easily by all banking customers.
• Improve design and customization of forms—Because Cedacri serves many banks, its form library required constant updating. This resulted in time-consuming administrative errors and limited the quality of final documents that could be produced.
• Generate dynamic documents—Cedacri wanted to offer more innovative services to its customers. The goal was to provide intelligent forms that included formulas and graphics that change automatically depending on the needs of the person requesting or completing the form.
• Eliminate distribution costs and time—Through the centralized management of forms, it was Cedacri’s goal to eliminate the costs and time associated with distribution.

Streamlined integration and maintenance
Engaged for an initial ten-day pilot, Adobe demonstrated how Cedacri could dramatically simplify human interaction with documents. Key to the success of the pilot was a combination of the Adobe LiveCycle open architecture combined with the ubiquitous Adobe Reader software. Cedacri successfully transitioned the first of the 40 banks to the new system, migrating from the old batch system to dynamic Adobe Portable Document (PDF) forms. Based on this success, the other banks are adopting Adobe LiveCycle solutions to enhance their services. The Adobe software used by Cedacri includes Adobe LiveCycle Forms to produce forms in interactive Adobe PDF and extract data from completed Adobe PDF forms; Adobe LiveCycle Form Manager to centrally manage forms; and Adobe Designer to design dynamic Adobe PDF forms.

Real benefits for banks and their customers
The solution integrates seamlessly with Cedacri’s services and allows banks to link Adobe PDF form templates with data in backend banking systems. Custom documents are generated dynamically. The solution has also considerably decreased the complexity of forms through customization, accelerated time to market, and ultimately improved customer service.

Giovanni Carosso, head of IT architectures at Cedacri, says "The Adobe LiveCycle solution allows us to generate more interactive, dynamic documents while decreasing costs. Indeed, with intelligent documents in Adobe PDF, we can take advantage of a wider range of functionalities while significantly eliminating formatting errors. With Adobe LiveCycle Designer software, we can create and customize forms in a user-friendly environment."

Once the full migration is complete, Cedacri anticipates the following benefits:

• Full return on investment is less than two years due to stable revenues and decreased system administration costs.
• Income per full-time employee (FTE) is expected to increase while expenses per FTE are expected to drop by reducing human errors and significantly decreasing human intervention in forms processes.
• Cedacri expects to save 0.5 staff-days each time it has to create a form. Considering this activity today requires 2 to 3 staff-days and that Cedacri is expected to migrate 40 banks, each using 40 forms, it is easy to calculate the impressive savings. Expectation is that 7 staff will be available for redeployment.
• Additionally, by managing forms distribution more efficiently Cedacri estimates that 6 further staff will be available for redeployment. This, with the 7 staff saved in form creation, brings the total up to 13 employees that would be freed from manual tasks when all 40 banks are using the Adobe solution.
• Cedacri is currently evaluating the possibility of widening the scope of the project to include service modules used internally by bank employees (i.e. for vacation requests or money transfers among branches). In this case savings would proportionally increase.
• Other positive metrics Cedacri will evaluate upon project completion are:
  • A higher conversion rate of Cedacri sales inquiries into effective sales, resulting from the use of more innovative products such as Adobe PDF forms.
  • Increased cross-selling ratio. Cedacri can leverage its existing client base in order to sell more products/services to each customer.

Potential soft benefits of this project include:

• Enhanced brand image
• Increased focus on markets and customers real needs
• Improved confidence and productivity of Cedacri staff.

The 40 banks Cedacri serves with the Adobe solution can expect impressive savings internally as well. With the existing solution bank employees often have to intervene manually using time and money to correct inefficiencies in the forms distribution process. It is therefore expected that impressive savings will materialize within Cedacri’s customers.

Fabrizio Pelizzi, Director, Cedacri.net added "The partnership we have developed with Adobe also opens us up to new market opportunities in other industries, allowing our company to achieve increased business diversification. Today we are definitely able to provide an innovative and secure product to a wider range of customers and we can count on a stable and trusted partner."

The following summarizes expected results:

• Cedacri can expect to free up to 13 employees from manual tasks, thanks to the simpler creation and management of forms.
• Full positive ROI is expected in a timeframe of 2 years maximum.
• Cedacri can use Adobe PDF as a standard. This grants advantages in the design, printing, and storage of forms. Moreover the solution allows for the elimination of formatting errors.
• Cedacri has been able to combine in real-time a template with data coming from the information system in a flexible and timely way. In addition Adobe PDF forms can also be completed manually.
• Through Adobe, Cedacri has implemented a common, integrated solution enterprise-wide. The integration of the Adobe solution with Cedacri information systems has been straight-forward.
• The Adobe solution allows improved flexibility and adaptability thanks to the switch from a client-server to a XML web-services open environment.
• Cedacri can now supply more sophisticated documents, which can include formulas, complex graphical elements, and that adapt dynamically to the specifications of contracts.
• Cedacri could easily widen the scope of the project to include not only customer forms but also service modules used internally by banks’ employees thus increasing economies of scale and therefore cost savings.
• Cedacri is evaluating the future adoption of digital signature support.
• Cedacri expects a positive return in terms of improved brand image since it is now able to provide a more innovative and improved service to its customers.
• Cedacri could also secure new market opportunities in other industries, achieving increased revenues and business diversification services.

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