Foxtrot Calms Mass Data Maintenance Storms for Pacific Capital

Pacific Capital Bancorp (PCB) is a $3.6 billion multi-bank holding company with a growing network of independent community banks which serve customers in six counties on California’s central coast. Collectively, PCB banks work with more than 104,000 customers representing nearly 175,000 deposit accounts.

In a 1999 effort to streamline operations and support the bank’s planned expansion, the company sought a comprehensive solution that would convert their merged systems and keep data clean on their in-house IBM mainframe system. The goal was challenging: to continue providing customers with the best products and services in the most cost-effective way, despite the company’s anticipated expansion.

Discovering a Seamless Solution

After noticing a magazine ad describing a complete data management solution, PCB discovered Foxtrot. Developed by EnableSoft®, Inc., Foxtrot uses a Windows-based data scripting technology that enables non-technical employees to perform various data mining and mass-maintenance tasks on information stored on mainframe and midrange host systems.

Foxtrot offers companies like PCB significant benefits, including consistently current and accurate data, as well as a reduced dependence on expensive, tedious custom programming. Because Foxtrot is easy for non-technical staff to use, it eliminates the need for outsourcing and restores an organization’s complete control over their valuable data.

Quick and Painless Implementation

PCB officials ordered a trial version of Foxtrot and immediately recognized the product’s immense value to the company. According to Terry Ball, Vice President, Central Operations Manager at PCB, "It was so easy to set up and use Foxtrot. We were operational in 15 minutes, so we were using Foxtrot the same day it was implemented. That’s when I wished I’d had it all along."

PCB gained immediate security through Foxtrot, as the product was designed to utilize all the security protocols that were already built into PCB’s host system while connecting to a terminal emulator. Ultimately, Foxtrot removed the responsibility from the IT staff to keep up with the day-to-day maintenance of customer data so they could focus on other key strategic initiatives, giving PCB complete control of their company’s data.

Banking on the Results

Since being installed in July 1999, Foxtrot has, in part, helped PCB make an enormous impression in the marketplace. For example, PCB was listed in June 2000 among 1999’s elite top-100 financial services performers in the United States by both ABA Banking Journal and by US Banker magazine.

In addition, PCB staff continue to find new ways of distinguishing themselves from the competition by discovering more of Foxtrot’s unique abilities since the initial installation, such as its ability to increase fee-income generating opportunities. Working through a standard terminal emulator that allows users to communicate with the IBM host system, PCB’s staff is capable of building scripts that drill, mine, extract, move, convert and update host application data.

PCB now utilizes Foxtrot to key in data, retrieve information from the database and run a deposit report each month for all business accounts that generate revenue based on cash deposits. Projects such as these, which used to take 8.5 man-hours of manual data entry, now take Foxtrot 20 minutes to do automatically. PCB notes that revenue generated by these accounts has increased from $2,000 to $20,000 per month.

PCB states it will continue to partner with EnableSoft to explore new methods of saving time and money. "In the financial world, you’re dealing with outside companies because you want to stay competitive, and the software sometimes hinders you," Ball stated. "That’s just not the case with Foxtrot. I wished other products worked as well as Foxtrot. We just haven’t seen anything else like it."

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