MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--U.S. Bank, Citi, Ignite Sales and Sageworks are winners in Barlow Research’s 2017 Monarch Innovation Awards. The winners were chosen based on their innovative products and features.
The Monarch Innovation Awards (www.MonarchInnovationAwards.com) are unique and coveted. The 2017 Monarch Award nominations are scored based on uniqueness, stickiness, defendability, ease of use, value and their ‘wow’ factor. This year’s winners were judged by a panel of five jurists: Nick Miller, Clarity Advantage; Mary Beth Sullivan, Capital Performance Group; Terri Cable, BAI; Bruce McMeekin, BKM Marketing Associates, Inc.; and Stu Richards, Bredin.
Most Innovative Product Award: U.S. Bank AP Optimizer
U.S.
Bank and accounting software leader Sage partnered to launch AP
Optimizer™, built by the bank on the Sage Live accounting platform. The
AP Optimizer’s Cash Flow Analyzer evaluates payment and cash flow data
and identifies best times to pay. By showing the projected cash flow
from both payables and receivables, the user quickly sees how to
maximize their working capital. The AP Optimizer’s Consolidated Payables
tool allows customers to tell the bank which payment method to use for
each vendor and when to pay. For the customer, multiple payment methods
(check, virtual card, ACH and wire) get streamlined into one simple and
efficient process.
Most Innovative Feature Award: Citi Interactive Solutions
Citi
Interactive Solutions platform helps to drive strategic decision-making
for treasury, procurement and shared service center organizations by
providing clients direct access to critical actionable intelligence.
Analyses using Citi Interactive Solutions address areas where inherent
inefficiencies may have trapped capital that could have been used for
more strategic purposes. Citi Interactive Solutions helps produce
recommendations and identify opportunities in a company’s treasury
operations that can directly impact financial performances.
Most Innovative Industry Partner: Ignite Sales LeadLync
LeadLync
fills a vital gap in the business banking sales process to ensure
business customers’ needs are met in a transparent, compliant and
ethical manner. Ignite’s LeadLync captures the sales conversation and
recommendations from Ignite’s patented customer engagement platform. It
then feeds that information directly and instantly into the bank’s
Salesforce platform using the Ignite Sales LeadLync integration module.
With the significant investment banks have in their Salesforce platform,
the bank’s Salesforce data and reports become more accurate, actionable
and valuable.
Overall Most Innovative Award: Sageworks Electronic Tax Return Reader
Sageworks
Electronic Tax Return Reader (ETRR) automatically imports
information from business borrowers’ tax returns, including financial
and real estate information, so that it can be used in credit analysis
without relying on manual data entry. The purpose of ETRR is to save
business bankers and credit analysts 10-60 minutes per return for new
loans and reviews, reduce data errors that may occur during manual entry
and ensure consistency of data entry between different analysts or
lenders. Bankers can respond to clients more quickly and their time can
be re-allocated to building business for the institution or servicing
customers, which can be a competitive advantage in today’s marketplace.
For more information, contact Emily Cade, Barlow Research Associates, 763-253-1817 or ecade@barlowresearch.com
About Barlow Research Associates, Inc. (BRAI):
Barlow
Research Associates, Inc. was founded in 1980 to provide research and
consulting services to the banking industry in the U.S. and overseas.
BRAI specializes in custom research, strategic consulting and syndicated
research programs in small business, middle market and digital business
banking. All three syndicated programs provide a continuous flow of
market knowledge and competitive intelligence to member institutions. www.BarlowResearch.com
