Company Overview
Stearns Lending is a privately-owned national mortgage lender, lending throughout the United States. Originally incorporated in 1984, Stearns sources its loans through a network of wholesale and retail branches, credit unions and correspondent lenders. Production is initiated and processed at the branch level; funding, shipping, secondary marketing and certain administrative functions are centralized in a corporate office, which also is home to senior management. Stearns Lending is currently ranked among the top 25 residential mortgage lenders in the United States and market share is growing every quarter.
Challenges
Over the past few years, Stearns’ business intelligence needs have grown tremendously. While Stearns’ had primarily operated wholesale branches in the past, they began to expand into retail, going from 10 to 100 branches in the last three years. Needless to say, they needed a way to manage the new inflow of data in an organized manner that also met regulatory requirements.
Previously, reports were primarily downloaded lists from the loan origination system. They were not flexible and required manual manipulation before they were analytically useful. Due to the higher volumes and the geographic expansion, it became more complicated to identify emerging trends and to proactively manag e operations. In addition, the manual reports took a lot of time to produce and contained varying data metrics and calculations. Senior managers needed a way to quickly compare the results of various branches, and to organize the data in a meaningful ways for every end user.
“Thanks to IBM Cognos Express’ innovative technology and Aviana’s top-notch consulting services, we have advanced our company profoundly. Now that our automatic reporting system is in place, we’re able to see a snapshot of the whole company at any given moment. It’s the difference between using a payphone and a smart phone; they both get the job done, but the smart phone has improved us in ways we never had thought about
before”
— Jean Meronk, VP of Financial Planning & Analysis, Stearns Lending
Impact
- With the IBM Cognos Express and Aviana’s powerful support and implementation, create a highly effective data warehouse that is specifically tailored to Aviana’s needs and metrics preferences at any given moment. Implement a powerful reporting tool that creates hundreds of accurate, flexible dashboard reports for end users every morning.
- Significantly increase productivity with the ability to easily organize the large amounts of data in a timely fashion without needing to increase staffing.
- Generate reports tailored to the specific needs of end users so that they may see actionable loans, bottlenecks, etc., giving them the exact data they need to perform their duties and prevent future problems.
- Create a platform that has allowed them to gain a partnership with a large builder as their mortgage lender, as they have the tools they need to consolidate both companies’ data into meaningful reports in a timely fashion.