BEDFORD, Mass.– May 27, 2008 – Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), a global supplier of application infrastructure software used to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, announced today that Cardif Pinnacle has selected Progress® EasyAsk® for Operational Business Intelligence (BI) software to replace their nine-year-old business intelligence (BI) system at their offices in South Africa. EasyAsk Operational BI delivers faster reporting time than the company's previous reporting tool, and empowers employees at all levels of the organization with the ability to retrieve BI data.
“Within a week of implementing EasyAsk for Operational BI, we were able to reduce our report development time from nine months to five minutes,” said Neville Du Piesanie, chief operations officer, Cardif Pinnacle. “These results were made possible in such a short amount of time because EasyAsk for Operational BI didn't require us to train employees before using the tool. The interface of EasyAsk for Operational BI looks and feels like a web-search box while performing like a more complex BI tool, providing all employees with an intuitive means to access data.”
South African government regulations require Cardif Pinnacle, a specialist underwriter of protected repayment insurance, motor shortfall and other unique payment protector insurance products to produce monthly risk calculations and performance management reports. With EasyAsk for Operational BI, employees at Cardif Pinnacle simply enter the questions they need answered (i.e. List number of claims paid this month by agent, value and policy number) and the software instantly retrieves the data as an ad-hoc report, as well as archived reports.
Cardif Pinnacle also used the power of EasyAsk for Operational BI to help retrieve, identify and remove duplicate information from the operating systems that handled client information. The removal of this redundant information further increased the company's efficiency by eliminating the need to search each report for duplicate information, thus freeing up man hours to focus on strategic business initiatives.
Du Piesanie continued: “Through the use of natural language rather than technical search terms or SQL coding, in addition to the reduction of duplicate information stored in our datacenters we eliminated the need to sift through pages of data in order to find the information we were searching for in the first place.”
“Traditional Business Intelligence tools only provide power users with access to data, or require extensive training, producing an IT driven data retrieval process. Both models slow down productivity as business professionals wait for the data necessary to continue their initiatives,” said Larry Harris, vice president and general manager Progress EasyAsk division. “EasyAsk for Operational BI software's familiar search box style interface, as well as its ability to use intuitive language searches breaks down the barrier between business professionals and databases, increasing productivity and reducing IT work overload.”
About Progress Software Corporation
Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) provides application infrastructure software for the development, deployment, integration and management of business applications. Our goal is to maximize the benefits of information technology while minimizing its complexity and total cost of ownership. Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or +1-781-280-4000.
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