How does watching a Major League Baseball game have anything to do with a financial institution?

Scarborough Research’s data analysis software, PRIME NExT, helps clients maximize the value of their data investment. Scarborough’s clients are able to tap into the basic and advanced analysis capabilities of PRIME NExT to tell their consumer or media research story. With interactive browser-driven technology, multiple report output options, customization capabilities and leading-edge features, PRIME NExT is the key to unlocking the power of consumer research.

Take for example, the banking and financial industry.  By using PRIME NExT, Scarborough Research is able to prove to a banking client that a good percentage of sports fans actually save for their future.  Furthermore, they can look deeper into this demographic and show that Major League Baseball attendees specifically are 47% more likely to have a 401K or college savings plan and use a financial planner.  In addition, they can show which institutions were used as the primary bank, which services where used at that bank, what credit cards have been used over the past three months, the type of organizations that people have contributed to over the last year, what investments have been made, what type of insurance is being used, what services have been bought and paid for over the last year (accountant, attorney, real estate agent, stockbroker, travel agents, etc.) and if office equipment and supplies or overnight delivery services have been used.  Combined, this gives their banking and financial clients a leg up on their own marketing initiatives to beat out their competition.*

All of this is made possible with Cincom Smalltalk and a small, talented development team.  When Scarborough Research was looking to upgrade to their current offering, Jim Collins, the Senior VP, Information Systems, decided to move it out of Visual Basic (which PRIME, the first rendition of PRIME NExT had been made in) and develop the new version in Smalltalk using Cincom VisualWorks®.  Part of the reasoning for this is the simplicity VisualWorks offered. At the height of PRIME’s development, it had six programmers working on it and making little headway. PRIME NExT’s development went much more smoothly.  VisualWorks not only allowed Collins to rapidly develop PRIME NExT, but it also cut down on support issues.

What it boils down to is giving clients rapid access to Scarborough’s data.

“From our clients’ point of view, it doesn’t matter what the application is written in,” Collins says. “But from our point of view, we can develop the application more quickly and more reasonably at lower expense.”

• To learn more about how Scarborough Research used VisualWorks to develop PRIME NExT and unlock the power of consumer research, click here.
• To learn more about Cincom VisualWorks, click here.