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Application Development

Infrastructure Assessments & Transformations

Business Consulting

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Experience

Matlen Silver has provided solutions to some of the worlds largest and most respected companies. Our vertical experience includes banking, wealth management, insurance, pharmaceutical and legal. The following provides a summary of some of our recent accomplishments:

 Wealth Management

 Business Leasing

The Business Financial Services business unit provides cash management, lending and M&A services for small and mid-size businesses; defined as businesses with annual revenues of $3MM to $100MM; with a priority on businesses in the $5MM to $50MM range. In the credit area, BFS, directly or through other divisions within the company, offers secured revolving lines of credit, term financing, securities-based lending, and owner-occupied commercial real estate financing. In addition, through external referral partners, BFS supports three products: SBA lending, equipment leasing and investment commercial real estate financing.

BFS launched an Online Credit Origination Platform, which enabled clients and prospects to submit applications for certain BFS offerings through a business center portal and other websites. Matlen Silver designed and built the BFS online application for real time data capture and processing. The Platform supports the delivery of third-party data (Fair Isaac, Trans Union, Experion, D&B, etc.), delivery of internal client-specific information (client segment and priority status, FA and/or FM assignment, etc.), real-time filtering and decisioning, document generation, and electronic communications.

The application and related data are subsequently forwarded to the appropriate backend systems in a XML format sufficient for the back-end system to accept the XML transmission and load the application into its internal credit origination and underwriting system.

Reporting

The client initiated programs to motivate the FA's to better capitalize on the high wealth market segment through increased offerings and better levels of service. A key service at the FA's disposal is the ability to manage the client portfolio using various software applications. In extending this service to a higher level of function, the FA's desired to convey the financial information in these complex financial portfolios to their high wealth clients. Matlen Silver worked with the Wealth Management business unit to implement a full service UI tool for FA's to perform account-modeling scenarios. In addition, a comprehensive suite of reports was created to dynamically generate client reports. FAs are now capable of producing 'what if' scenarios for portfolios and generate complex, highly informative and visually appealing graphs and charts for their clients.

Technology Migration Project

Matlen Silver was awarded a fixed price contract to provide research and development on existing financial reports within the wealth management business unit. Responsibilities included research of XML-FO technology and related toolsets. Matlen Silver provideed a detailed plan on how to migrate existing reports into the new technology and how to create new reports in XML-FO. Matlen Silver also provided detailed specification and prototypes to assist with the process.

Account Opening Application Automation

Matlen Silver was engaged to assist the Trust business unit in reengineering their account opening process. Opening a trust account was a complex endeavor that could sometimes take several weeks. The paper-based work flow required shipping of paper back-and-forth between financial advisors consultants, trust officers, and new business acceptance officers and redundant data entry, using as many as 100 or more forms. Matlen Silver decomposed the form-based workflow to derive a data model and optimal re-engineered process which was incorporated into business requirements to build a simple Web-based application to move data through the account opening process. Simply reducing redundant data entry and the need to send forms from person to person is expected to increase efficiency and reduce the time required to open an account by several orders of magnitude.

Seibel Migration

Matlen Silver was engaged by the online marketing department to perform an impact analysis of migration from Seibel to Salesforce.com. Matlen Silver mapped all high-level business processes and researched the last four years of Seibel customizations. Analysis of this data produced 18-specific areas that would incur extensive changes and costs in their migration to Salesforce.com. This supported cost-sharing negotiations with Salesforce.com as well as other divisions of the client.

 Banking

 Testing

Matlen Silver deployed the first formal testing group within this mid-sized bank. In addition to testing numerous applications including Credit Card Rewards and the Business Center Portal for SMB clients, Matlen Silver created and implemented a set of formal testing processes for the bank and implemented automated testing tools.

Server Consolidation

A major IT service provider needed help on a project to set up over 800 UNIX and Windows servers for a large financial services client. Timeframes were tight and the work quality had to be outstanding. Matlen Silver quickly mobilized a team of over 25 engineers, established a management and communication process, and reviewed and enhanced the overall server build and deployment procedure. The managed delivery model included tightly managed project planning, automated handoffs and communications, a separate quality assurance function and a full performance and tuning team to ensure exceptional application deployment service.
Insurance

 Secured Creditor Application 

Matlen Silvers client implemented a program in 1997 known as Secured Creditor Impaired Property Policy. The objective of the program is to insure commercial property that demonstrates a potential environmental risk. The insured is the loan institute or bank. The financial institution is the issuer of the commercial property loan or mortgage. The customer is issued a policy and receives applications against that policy. The applications are presented to the underwriters and are accepted or rejected. If accepted by the underwriter, the coverage determination is made and the insureds policy and premium is reconciled accordingly. Environmental factors that go in to determining premiums of these properties are extracted from an external source named VISTA. The time lapse of the loan processing exceeded 45 and frequently 60 days. This manual and lengthy processing required additional support staff but more significantly the delays caused delayed revenue streams and exposed risks in rate variations.

Matlen Silver built a real time loan processing application that condensed the process down to 15 to 20 days in many cases. The application was built to allow for automated decision processing driven by configurable decision rules. This allowed for early disqualification of unqualified purchases and more focus to be placed on viable transactions. In addition, a real time feed was implemented to the third party source, VISTA, to get current land and environment history for the exact address or latitude and longitude coordinates. The overall loan processing costs decreased significantly while the number of qualified deals that the system processed increased.

Maintenance & Support Outsourcing

A client that provides a broad range of property and casualty insurance was in need of long-term application maintenance and support services. Matlen Silver entered a five-year contract to support 143 of its applications, including the placement and management of resources during the term of the contract.

This project involved nearly 50 mainframe Programmer Analysts, experienced in IMS, CICS, COBOL and DB2. Matlen Silver also provided some 25 architects, developers and programmers to support client/server, Web and database applications, using C/C++, VB, ASP, JavaScript, SQL Server and Informatica. As a part of this project, Matlen Silvers resources played a pivotal role in the re-engineering of the client's WAN/LAN, data delivery and Intel-based server infrastructure.

 Pharmaceutical

Clinical Study Application Re-Write

Matlen Silver was engaged to redesign a Proof-of-Concept (POC) application that allows coordinators to monitor and track the progress of all non-registration studies. The POC was proved to be a very successful application but built on a Lotus Notes platform, it lacks the infrastructure and design to support production data and ongoing activities. Managing the studies has become a challenging task as defects would appear in Production environment that require 'quick fixes' from the support team. Management had growing concerns over the scalability of this application and therefore needed to seek alternatives.

To fill this need, Matlen Silver had to analyze what was needed for the redesign of the application. The Design consists of building functional requirements specifications in the form of use cases, wire frames, report requirements and work flow diagrams to document the following functional areas:

  • Recreate functionality of existing Lotus Notes system
  • Recreate report function of existing system
    •
  • Define new features described in our application assessment document
Matlen Silver business analysts met with key stakeholders to review existing functionality and elicit future business needs. A regular review sessions ensured all project deliverable were met within the targeted project time line. At the conclusion of the design analysis, Matlen Silver had produced the following design deliverable:
  • System Use Cases

  • Report Use Cases

  • Wire frames

  • Process Flows

  • Role Based Function List

  • Data Element Modification Matrix

  • Story Board

These design deliverable are constructed in such a manner that the developers can take the package and begin to code. This mechanism minimizes disruption to the business owner on requirement clarification.

Provide File Information System

Matlen Silver was engaged to design and develop a Provider File Information system for a major medical insurance provider based in New Jersey.

The firm had been managing provider information for over 22,000 medical service providers in a Microsoft Access 97 database application. The firm did not have the technical expertise to enhance the existing system. Consequently, as business needs and regulatory requirements changed, complex manual and semi-automated workaround processes were implemented to provide data and reports to downstream users.

Although the workarounds were functional, they were labor intensive and prone to errors. Requests for ad hoc reports and information often required significant manual effort and data manipulation, and sometimes provided inaccurate results. Frequently, the same information appearing in two different reports would not match.

Access 97 is no longer commercially available nor is it supported by Microsoft. The firm had also attempted, unsuccessfully, to convert the application to a more recent version of Microsoft Access. The Access 97 application was nearing the end of its serviceable life. Management was concerned about data accuracy and the applications continued viability. When presented with a new round of regulatory and business need changes, management decided to replace the Access 97 system with a new, scalable and maintainable application.

To fill this need, Matlen Silver built a Provider File Information (PFI) system using ASP.Net 3.5 running on SQL Server 2005. The system is to serve as a primary source of medical provider demographic, specialty, group membership and affiliation information for regulatory reporting and production of the online and printed Provider Directories.

The systems major functionalities include:

  • The ability to receive provider information from upstream applications

  • The ability to specify unique specialties for a provider at each location

  • Monthly statewide and county specific printed Provider Directories

  • Quarterly State compliance reporting

  • The ability to send provider detail data to downstream in-house applications


In addition, the Provider File Information system provides daily data feeds to downstream third party systems to support the Online Provider Directory and billing and payment systems. This new system improves data quality and timeliness, and automates many previously manual processes reducing manual labor and improving accuracy. It will help the firm improve and maintain regulatory compliance with government and third party auditors.

Meeting Management Application

Matlen Silver was engaged to design and develop a Meeting Management System for a major pharmaceutical firm based in the U.S. The firm had been keeping track of different stages and costs in scheduling and planning large meetings in Excel spreadsheets. Managing the meeting logistics in Excel became very cumbersome as the number of meetings that needed to be planned grew exponentially. Therefore, they desired to automate the process to provide more reliability and scalability to the meeting management process.

To fill this need, Matlen Silver built a Meeting Management System using Java / Oracle Server technologies. The system is to serve as the primary source of all information and data related to a meetings logistics, stages, and costs.

The systems major functionalities include:

  • Multiple stage meeting creation and data capture

  • Search for meetings in any stage of the meeting life cycle

  • Budget analysis reporting

  • Financial summary reporting

  • Cost avoidance reporting

  • Streamline meeting creation by creating new meetings based on data stored for existing meetings

In addition the Meeting Management System includes:
  • Work in progress reporting

  • Corporate Meeting Card reporting

  • Business Travel Account reporting

  • Purchase order tracking

  • Customized reports


This new system improves and automates the process of collecting meeting logistics and reporting on the data captured. It provides visibility into costs at all stages of meeting planning and highlights where costs could be saved, thus greatly reducing overall meeting costs. It also consolidates meeting planning from multiple users and spreadsheets into one system.

Accounting & Legal

 Partner Accounting System

Matlen Silver was engaged to design and develop a Partner Accounting System for a major merger and acquisition law firm based in the U.S. The firm had been managing partnership accounting in spreadsheets for over 400 partners. The spreadsheets proved to be functionally successful but it relies heavily on macros and formulas that need to be changed from year to year, quarter to quarter or when business rules change. Simple requests for information by partners often entail a significant manual effort to investigate on several years worth of spreadsheets to get the requested number. Therefore management had concerns over the long term scalability and maintainability over these spreadsheets and desired to streamline the core accounting process to provide reliability and visibility to the Tax Accounting Group.

To fill this need, Matlen Silver built a Partner Accounting System (PAS) using ASP.Net 3.5 running on SQL 2005 and Report Services 2005. The system is to serve as a primary source of partner income, distributions, capital contributions, etc. The systems major functionalities include:
  • Allocation to firm income to partners

  • Maintenance of partner capital accounts

  • Monthly and Quarterly Distributions to partners

  • Process foreign exchange

  • Preparation of memos and statements for partners and their accountants


In addition, the Partner Accounting System includes:
  • Expression engine to manage business rule changes

  • Process feeds to payroll payments and deductions for each pay cycle

  • Income Item Reporting

  • Distribution by Cycle Reporting

  • Capital Reporting

  • Return of Capital Projection

This new system allows the tax group to spend less time entering data and more time processing exceptions and unique requests that require analyzing and distributing partner information. It provides visibility into partners financial stake in the overall business and result in quicker response time when special requests have been demanded by partners.

SAS70 Audit Reporting Tool

Matlen Silver was engaged to design and develop a SAS70 Audit Reporting Tool for one of the major auditing firm based in the U.S. The firm has been receiving Excel-based matrix from clients to conduct SAS70 audit engagements; the matrix includes processes, control objectives and specific controls that are used as basis for the audit. Audit staff work with clients to articulate control objectives and controls and then design tests to validate those controls. All the processes and tests defined are documented in spreadsheets and this becomes the master file for the engagement team. Although this process proves to be functional, managing the template versions and data has become very cumbersome as the number of tests and controls that need to be validated grew exponentially. Therefore, they desired to streamline the data collection process to provide more reliability and visibility into the audit engagement process.

To fill this need, Matlen Silver built a SAS70 Reporting Tool using Microsoft .Net/ SQL Server technologies. The system is to serve as a primary source of data collection, audit management and reporting. The systems major functionalities include:

  • Design and maintain engagement elements

  • Define testing approach and sample rationale

  • Execute testing in various phases via online and offline mode

  • Electronically capture sign off on test results

  • Prepare final working paper for archival purposes


In addition, the SAS70 Reporting Tool includes:
  • Download workbook to work offsite

  • Synchronize workbooks

  • Roll over core audit elements from one year to another

  • Customized reports


This new system improves and automates the process of collecting audit elements. It significantly reduces the amount of time to take to set up audit engagement for each year for the client. Furthermore, it consolidates all spreadsheets from the audit team into one system and more importantly, it provides clear visibility into the testing progress, allowing management to closely monitor the audit engagement.

Professional Development and Assignment System

Matlen Silver was engaged to design and develop a Professional Development and Assignment System for a major international law firm based in the U.S. The firm had been keeping track of staff assignments and profiles using Excel spreadsheets that detailed out each staff skills sets and projects that they were working on. They desired to streamline the assignment process to provide more reliability and visibility to the associate assignment process.

To fill this need, Matlen Silver built a Professional Development and Assignment System using Microsoft .NET / SQL Server technologies. The system is to serve as the primary source of all information and data related to associate assignments, utilization, and profiles. The systems major functionalities include:
  • Assignment creation

  • Assign staff to assignment

  • Assignment search and matching

  • Assignment utilization snapshot

  • Staff profile repository

  • Cross department staff visibility



In addition to the Professional Development and Assignment System includes:

  • Integration with existing client data feeds such as time billing.
  • Complex calendar module for capturing and displaying staff availability.
  • Customized reports.

This new system improves and automates the process of allocating the appropriate staff to existing projects across multiple departments. It provides visibility into projects and staff across all departments globally enabling fast and appropriate staff assignments, thus increasing staff productivity and utilization. It also maximizes accurate time, availability, and billing reporting.

 
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