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Bank of Ireland Selects Business Objects as Its Enterprise Business Intelligence Standard


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BusinessObjects™ XI Release 3.0 to Provide Long-Time SAP Customer with Increased Insight into Performance Data
Combination of Business Objects Platform and SAP® Solutions to Help Bank Proactively Manage Risk and More Quickly Respond to Market Conditions

BERLIN .- SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Bank of Ireland has selected Business Objects, an SAP company, as its business intelligence standard, following an extensive review of available business intelligence solutions. Bank of Ireland is a long-time SAP customer and the addition of BusinessObjects™ XI Release 3.0, the leading enterprise-scale business intelligence platform, will enable the bank to more easily access, analyze and distribute information throughout the company and more quickly respond to market events. New business intelligence solutions from Business Objects, combined with SAP’s flagship enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, SAP® ERP, and SAP for Banking solutions, will provide executives and line of business managers with increased transparency into performance data from across the organization, giving them the insight needed to optimize business performance while minimizing risk. The announcement was made at SAPPHIRE® 2008, SAP’s international customer conference, being held in Berlin, Germany, May 19 – 21.

“As our bank continues to grow both in Ireland and abroad, we need complete visibility into our business performance” said Vincent Lattimore, manager of IT Procurement Services, Bank of Ireland. “Our close working relationship with SAP has helped us streamline operations and better manage credit risks. With our rapid expansion, we needed to centralize all information related to operations and give our management a 360-degree view across our distributed business units. Selecting the business intelligence platform from Business Objects was the logical choice to help extend the value of our SAP deployment. The Business Objects business intelligence platform has the functionality to support both our current and future information needs – and empowers our executives with the information they need to improve day-to-day decision making.”

Bank of Ireland is a diversified financial services group with market-leading positions in Ireland and niche markets internationally. The company has been successfully using the SAP® Business Suite family of business applications to help better manage business processes, including finance, human resources and procurement. In addition, the bank relies on the SAP® Bank Analyzer set of applications to support compliance with Basel II while enhancing finance and risk management. As the bank grew, it required a rapid, secure way to bring together SAP and non-SAP data in one place and increase the outflow of information to employees. Given the current financial climate, Bank of Ireland also wanted to ensure that it was maximizing all financial data and gaining a holistic view of operational and financial performance.

The bank selected the BusinessObjects XI Release 3.0 platform because it provided one solution to more quickly access information from across its enterprise and deliver relevant, trusted information to authorized employees where and how they work. For example, with Business Objects, the bank will be able to automatically distribute performance reports to managers in branches and trading desks on a daily or weekly basis. Deploying business intelligence solutions from Business Objects with existing SAP solutions will also empower risk and finance executives with regularly scheduled reports on real-time performance data, enabling them to increase efficiency, mitigate risk and react quickly to market changes.

“Combining Business Objects solutions with SAP solutions helps our joint customers, like Bank of Ireland, ensure that strategy and execution are intimately linked and enables customers to optimize their business performance in a closed-loop solution,” said John Schwarz, CEO, Business Objects, an SAP company, and member of the Executive Board, SAP. “The business intelligence platform from Business Objects is a powerful tool that allows users to make their process and decision more intelligent. Bank of Ireland is a perfect example of how Business Objects adds value to SAP customers’ existing IT investments and helps them take their business to the next level. We look forward to working with Bank of Ireland to create an enterprise-wide strategy that closes the gap between information and action.”

Business Objects and SAP Provide Immediate Benefits to Banks
Immediately following the acquisition’s close, SAP and Business Objects joined forces to help the banking industry address critical issues, including risk management and compliance, improved operational efficiency, and cross-selling to customers across banks’ various lines of business. Bringing together Business Objects business intelligence solutions with analytic applications for banks from SAP provides banking companies with a suite of integrated, industry-specific solutions to address these challenges.

For example, the SAP Bank Analyzer helps banks address legal compliance challenges, as well as perform financial accounting, cost controlling, risk management, asset liability management and profitability analysis. Business Objects adds value to SAP Bank Analyzer by providing advanced analytic, reporting and dashboard capabilities, making actionable data easily accessible to a wide variety of users. The combination of deep banking expertise offered by both companies will help banks enact an integrated risk and finance approach, and provide them with accurate, immediate insight to help ensure that the execution of business process is aligned with corporate strategy.

“Having Bank of Ireland as one of our first joint customers further confirms the value our combined organizations offer to the banking industry,” said Thomas Balgheim, senior vice president, Global Banking Line of Business, SAP AG. “Both SAP and Business Objects have a strong tradition of supporting our customers’ need for solutions that are appropriate for their individual businesses. Uniting our complementary banking solutions adds instant value to our joint customers in the banking community.”



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