Information and Knowledge Management using ArcGIS ModelBuilder

Renata Paola Dameri
For these reasons, bank ICT strategies should move towards a double-level use of the Internet: at the
basis level, Internet is adopted like a common resource and it is used with the aim to support
efficiency in business process, reducing the operational and capital expenditures connected with the
aodption of web-based applications; at the high level, Internet is used like a strategic lever to support
specific strategic aims.
This second use of Internet needs a different approach, not based on the relations between ICT
expenditure (to control or reduce) and process efficiency (to improve and optimize), but on three value
driver linked each others, innovation, alignment, evaluation:
Innovation means to shift ICT expenditure from operational functioning to innovative projects;
Alignment means to coordinate ICT and Internet investments with business strategies,
considering also internal control and external communications;
Evaluation means not to invest in ICT and the Internet without strategic assessment of the project,
return measurement and success evaluation of each web-based initiative.
3. Innovating services, aligning business strategy and evaluating the obtained
results: The Creditis experience
The Banca Carige Group is one of the six leading banking, insurance and pension groups in Italy. It
has more than 1,000 sales outlets (bank branches and insurance agencies) based throughout Italy,
and over 2 million customers who are either households, professionals, small and medium-sized
businesses and cottage industries. Besides the Parent Company, Banca Carige, the Group includes
another four banks (Cassa di Risparmio di Savona, Cassa di Risparmio di Carrara, Banca del Monte
di Lucca, Banca Cesare Ponti), the asset management company Carige Asset Management Sgr, and
the insurance companies Carige Assicurazioni (non-life insurance) and Carige Vita Nuova (life
insurance).
Carige is also the majority shareholder of Creditis Servizi Finanziari, a company specialized in
consumer credit. This paper introduces the business case of Valea, the Creditis revolving credit card
realising an on-line product based on consumer credit. Valea is very simple to use: the customer
obtains from Banca Carige an overcraft limit; it is credited to Valea. Paying by Valea the overcraft limit
is reduced, and the customer replaces it by monthly installments. Valea is not a simple credit card, not
only because it is based on a funding contract, but also because each customer can customize his
own card using the online customised service available on the web site of Creditis. Therefore, Valea
incorporates in a credit card a loan self-managed by the customer.
This business case explains how Banca Carige used some evaluating instruments – both before and
after the introduction of its new product Valea – to align ICT instruments with its strategies, to
innovate its financial services and to measure the success of this initiative. Indedd, Internet is very
widespread in banking; therefore, the use of web sites and other Internet instruments is no more a
strategic weapon. To obtain satisfying results by financial products based on Internet, three positive
behaviour are needed:
To support strategic choices based on the use of Internet in banking with alignment between
specific strategic aims and specific ICT technonolgies and applications;
To real innovate the financial product or service using the Internet to change one or more of its
characteristics;
To define an integrated instrument to both support the choices and the desing of new financial
services in the development phase, and to measure the obtained returns in the postimplementation
phase.
Sometimes to designing an evaluation instrument to support both the ex-ante choices and the ex-post
assessment is complex; in other cases, it is not so difficult to reshape classic evaluation models just
for a specific business need. In this business case, I suggested to Banca Carige to adopt the
Henderson and Venkatraman ICT alignment model to both analize and define their strategic path, and
to assess the results after the first implementation; this also to judge if their investment produced the
expected benefits and if they wanted to continue the project or not.
The well known Henderson and Venkatraman model (Fig. 1) defines how a company should both
creates a strategic fit between its internal organization structures and its external strategies, and in
the meantime to create a functional integration between business and ICT. This model is a real
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