COVER STORY: CAPITOL FEDERAL TRUSTS IBM SOFTWARE

Financial institution trims network costs and improves customer service

In 106 years of serving families and individuals in the state of Kansas, Capitol Federal Savings (CapFed) has earned the trust of its customers and of the communities it serves. The institution claims over $5 billion (U.S.) in assets, mostly in the form of home mortgages and retail savings, or individual savings accounts. It’s no surprise that trustworthiness was a key consideration when CapFed recently decided to entrust its data network to IBM WorkSpace On-Demand.

According to Jeff Bogue, Manager of Technical Services, CapFed’s employees have enjoyed more reliable network service and fast, easy access to new software since he and his staff began to deploy WorkSpace On-Demand. As a result, customer service—already a major ingredient in CapFed’s success—is even more prompt and more efficient than before.

Simplified Deployment
CapFed has already rolled out WorkSpace On-Demand to nearly 200 employees. Soon, WorkSpace On-Demand will be deployed on all of the bank’s 550 OS/2® Warp workstations in 32 branches, so that loan officers, retail savings agents, and internal departments such as Human Resources can all use a single, standard desktop that has been configured by CapFed’s IT staff.

The standard desktop on each user workstation provides host access through the terminal-emulation function in WorkSpace On-Demand. Each user also has access to general-purpose applications such as Lotus SmartSuite® and Lotus Notes®, and to specialized applications like a loan-origination program from Argo Data Systems. WorkSpace On-Demand ensures that every employee has the same desktop configuration and the same software upgrade levels.

Future plans call for the addition of new retail-savings and human-relations applications to the standard desktop. With applications like these, CapFed expects to be able to respond faster to customer questions and provide faster turnaround on transactions—keys to staying competitive in today’s marketplace.

Workspace On-Demand has made it easier to install these types of vital new applications and upgrade existing software. Administrators install program code on a server and propagate to the desktops with no intervention at the workstations by either the IT staff or the end users. CapFed has found that this saves the IT staff a great deal of time on software distribution and results in lower costs.

With WorkSpace On-Demand, Bogue says, “We were able to take a new branch and bring it online in just a short amount of time. Where it would normally take us hours or even days to prepare all the workstations, we can do that now in just a matter of minutes. It’s as easy as a few keystrokes, and it’s done.”

Fast, Low-Cost Service
Having a standard desktop—which users cannot change but which gives them access to the data and applications they need—also reduces the time and money required to provide service and technical support for end users. Establishing a single look-and-feel for all users across the enterprise, Bogue believes, is reducing the number of user errors—such as files accidentally being deleted—and has made it easier for the IT staff to troubleshoot and fix problems.

Today, when a support call comes in from a branch office, the single look-and-feel means that the help desk technician knows immediately what software the user has and how the user’s desktop is configured. Using IBM NetFinity Manager, which can be accessed from every desktop, the technician can interact directly with the user’s desktop and even take control of the workstation when necessary.

Even serious hardware problems no longer mean long periods of downtime. For example, employees no longer have to wait for the IT technician to travel to the branch office, replace or repair hardware components, and reconfigure a workstation. Instead, employees can simply move to a spare workstation that has the same software configuration they are used to, with access to the same data on the server. After the hardware is repaired, there is no need to reconfigure the workstation. A copy of the system configuration is simply downloaded from server to workstation.

CapFed wants to ensure that its network is free from the Year 2000 problem—a daunting task when users have installed programs on their workstations that might not be Year 2000-ready. Bogue, however, believes that WorkSpace On-Demand has significantly reduced the risk of a Year 2000 problem. Because every desktop’s configuration is controlled at a server, the IT staff simply needs to verify that the programs on the server are Year 2000-ready. (The WorkSpace On-Demand product itself is Year 2000-ready.)

Bogue estimates that WorkSpace On-Demand will cut per-seat service costs by half, if not more. “It’s much easier to maintain 55 servers than 550 workstations,” he says. “WorkSpace On-Demand is going to drastically impact our ability to maintain those workstations.”

A Valuable Business Relationship
CapFed’s success with WorkSpace On-Demand stems directly from its involvement with a systems integrator, Starfire Engineering & Technologies, Inc., of Lawrence, Kansas. Starfire’s Richard Spurlock explains that he recommended WorkSpace On-Demand while consulting with CapFed about a network security solution.

The turning point in selecting WorkSpace On-Demand came in late 1997 when CapFed’s IT staff needed to set up a training lab with six workstations. Instead of having a technician configure each workstation separately, Starfire’s Spurlock offered to set up the lab using WorkSpace On-Demand. When the three-day job was completed in just one hour, WorkSpace On-Demand had virtually sold itself.

A key reason for Starfire’s successful partnership with CapFed is the working relationship it enjoys with IBM as a Premier IBM Business Partner-Software and a Premium Lotus Business Partner. This relationship gives Starfire advance access to upcoming products and services, in-depth technical training, direct access to IBM technical staff, and insight into IBM’s strategic direction. In Spurlock’s words, “Our relationship with IBM enables us to deliver the solutions our customers want and need.”

A High Level of Trust
To CapFed’s Bogue, WorkSpace On-Demand combines the best aspects of client/server computing with the advantages of traditional mainframe-based networks. It matches perfectly with CapFed’s strategy for client/server computing— a strategy that emphasizes control, security, and stability.

Perhaps best of all, CapFed is finding WorkSpace On-Demand to be a significant cost-saver. Bogue notes that supporting client/server networks often costs much more, on a per-user basis, than supporting host-centered networks. Yet, he states, “We’re providing state-of-the art solutions at the client workstation with the same resources required to maintain a ‘dumb’ terminal.”

Both Bogue and Spurlock enthusiastically support the IBM network at CapFed. Because IBM is an “architecture” company rather than a “shrink-wrap” company—providing integrated solutions rather than simply selling products—Bogue feels certain that the WorkSpace On-Demand network will meet CapFed’s needs for a long time. He explains, “IBM’s got an excellent product. It will provide us the ability to react quickly in a changing environment.”

By placing its trust in IBM’s WorkSpace On-Demand, Capitol Federal has built a data network that should continue to earn the trust of its employees for many years to come.

For More Information
Visit http://www.ibm.com/software/network/workspace/ or http://www.starfire.net/.