Earnings Performance Group, a consulting firm based in Short Hills, N.J., announced it is marketing an extensive customer information system like one that Barnett Banks Inc. has implemented in its retail banking network.
The consultancy worked with Barnett on what is one of the more advanced systems of its kind, and will be able to use Barnett as a showcase for the product it is selling under the name Customer Enterprise System.
Many banks and their systems vendors have been pursuing the holy grail of an "enterprise-wide" system that facilitates marketing, relationship management, and profitability analysis across all products and business units.
Barnett Technologies Inc. claims to be in the forefront of the movement with the customer information system it created with Data-Core Systems of Philadelphia. The Jacksonville, Fla., banking company says it has been a critical relationship-management and business-growth tool.
"CES -has dramatically improved the way Barnett sells, and it helps us deliver efficient, highquality customer service throughout our company," said Jonathan Palmer, chief executive of both retail banking and technology at $39 billion-asset Barnett.
"Our ability to focus on customers from a total relationship perspective, rather than a product-by-product basis, gives us a distinct advantage in our markets and has already produced measurable performance imaprovements," Mr. Palmer said.
The Customer Enterprise System package that Earnings Performance Group is selling is not dependent on a bank's hardware choices - Barnett uses an Argo Data Resource Corp. front-end system - or pre-existing "legacy" computer systems, said Charles Forbes, a principal of the New Jersey firm, who unveiled the product during the Bank Administration Institute's retail delivery systems conference in Phoenix.
A Barnett official who was present at the conference said that among the key issues addressed by the system are ease of use, access to data bases, and minimal need for training or knowledge of codes.
Before taking its offering public, Earnings Performance Group conducted market research that confirmed banks' hunger for highly functional customer information systems. .
"Demand is robust for both new systems and upgrades of existing ones," Mr. Forbes said.
"From our research, we believe many in the industry have searched a long time for such a fully integrated, flexible customer information management system," said Joseph Halpin, a principal with Earnings Performance Group.
The consulting firm has been working with Barnett for several years. The bank uses its customer relationship inquiry service system and Automated Research and Settlement System, which helps research, resolve, and adjust account problems. I I
