Case Study: mPower
mPower blazed the trail of affordable, objective online investment advice when it was founded in 1995 (as 401k Forum). And today, the company remains the leading provider of online advice for defined contribution plan participants.
mPower does not manage money or sell financial products. Rather, the company provides investors with direct, actionable answers to their most pressing questions through easy-to-understand advice and comprehensive education. This Institutional-quality retirement savings and investment advice is specific to each individual's financial situation and retirement goals and is available through customized web pages.
Challenge
mPower knows very well how to acquire, analyze, and effectively present key financial information. The company's fast growing client list certainly attests to its financial acumen. The new challenge was dealing with the sheer volume of data that needed to be captured, validated, organized, reported on, and distributed via customized web pages. The long-term solution required restructuring the entire information storage and web publishing processes.
The long-term solution was not only to implement an automated web distribution system, but also to build this new publishing system on top of an information foundation that could expand as mPower increased its service offerings - a scalable architecture.
Menlo Technologies's mission was to design that scalable information architecture and develop reliable applications to streamline the data management process and automate the web delivery mechanisms.
Solution
Working closely with mPower's senior management and business and technical staff, Menlo Technologies executed a disciplined methodology to gain a thorough understanding of mPower's data entry and web publication processes and needs. Using that knowledge, Menlo Technologies implemented a comprehensive and scalable data system and developed an Intranet-based data entry application that effectively supports data capture, validation, and reporting.
Building upon this reliable information foundation, Menlo Technologies developed applications that analyze and consolidate the masses of data, and distribute the results as customized web pages.
The technical environment includes Apache Web Server, BEA WebLogic Application Server, and Oracle 8i running on a Sun platform.
Value
By streamlining, automating, and integrating the information entry and distribution processes, mPower has been able to significantly reduce errors, decrease staffing support requirements, and shorten the time spent on the mechanics of delivering information to its customers. Less time on mechanics allows mPower to spend more time on its core competencies in financial analysis. |