Sandy Spring Bank Installs Planning Solution

Sandy Spring Bank, the third-largest commercial bank headquartered in Maryland, has installed Performance Management Suite, a corporate performance management system from INEA Corp., Toronto.

In order to improve profitability, Sandy Spring Bank decided it needed to transform the finance function from a static annual budget exercise to a dynamic, monthly planning and forecasting process that links manager goal-setting with relevant business goals.

"Providing the numbers isn't enough," according to Dennis Neville, senior vice president and controller of $2.3 billion Sandy Spring Bank. "One of the most important things we can bring to management is the ability to gain insight into initiatives that drive value for the bank."

The bank turned to INEA to put in place an integrated planning, forecasting, reporting and analysis system-one that "supports a holistic, proactive approach to managing our business," said Neville.

Topping the list of criteria were the need to deliver more consistent and transparent information, and the need to serve a wide variety of users throughout the bank.

INEA provides corporate performance management applications for financial institutions. "There is a certain comfort level in knowing that we would be working with people who understood our world," according to Phil Mantua, SVP of management accounting at Sandy Spring Bank. "Plus, we could immediately begin to leverage INEA's functionality, rather than spend time on building these capabilities in a generic offering."

The bank plans to put INEA to use in meeting its longer-term decision support system needs, such as evolving initiatives around customer profitability.

The system was installed in time to assist with 2003 planning. "We will be pursuing other defined forecasting, analysis and reporting goals during 2003 and 2004," said Neville.

"We look to INEA as a partner to enable us to leverage better quality information as we continue to grow our business," Neville said.