French National Railways Improves Efficiency for Tracking 160,000 Employees Using WebFOCUS Business Intelligence

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - August 19, 2008) - Information Builders, the leader in pervasive business intelligence (BI) systems, today announced that the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF) selected Information Builders WebFOCUS BI platform to help it manage its more than 160,000 employees spread out all around France.

A French public enterprise, the SNCF is responsible for the operation of rail services for passengers and freight, signaling, and maintenance of rail infrastructure owned by RFF (Réseau Ferré de France). Structured both vertically by branch and horizontally by operational unit, SNCF has a human resources (HR) division that includes 4,400 people. It is organized into six departments or dedicated units: executives; employment and pay; organizational management; social welfare; industrial relations; and HR and general services. The WebFOCUS rollout has enabled SNCF to create a decentralized HR control network, thereby simplifying access to information and dramatically enhancing social reporting.

The project's key goal was to enable branches and operational units to access the information required for HR control easily and in real time. With this in mind, the SNCF chose WebFOCUS because it enabled it to analyze data collected automatically from the Infocentre within SNCF, which is fed by both the accounts and HR systems.

An original team of approximately thirty HR controllers immediately embraced the WebFOCUS platform. Ultimately, the application will reach around 200 target users.

"As one of France's largest public sector employers," said Gerald Cohen, founder and CEO of Information Builders, "SNCF's ability to manage large data sets through advanced reporting and analysis ultimately keeps the organization running smoothly. WebFOCUS is flexible enough to meet the unique needs of three distinct levels of management whether it be for in-depth analysis or organization-wide performance against goals."

The company conducts data analysis using key indicators it sets and creates automated reports that include information on training, pay, holidays, and working conditions for 160,000 SNCF employees. The reports are designed to support three distinct levels of management: an expert level which gives access to individuals' information for in-depth analyses; a management control level for statistical analyses; and a review level that allows for the examination of achievements and goals.

The reports are used to monitor staff members precisely, record actions taken, measure the changes that have taken place over the last year, and assess company performance. The platform is easily accessible in just a few clicks via a user-friendly Web interface and does not require any specific user training.

"WebFOCUS by Information Builders has enabled us to take control of our HR control network in just a few months," said Arnaud Kohler, HR control manager for SNCF. "The key elements that led us to choose this solution were the option of creating queries very easily using new indicators, of extending the project to new functionalities, and of rapidly rolling the system out to a large number of users."

About Information Builders

As a leading independent business intelligence (BI) company for the past 30 years, Information Builders has provided innovative solutions to more than 12,000 customers, including most of the Fortune 100 and numerous U.S. federal government agencies. The company's flagship WebFOCUS product is the world's most widely used BI platform. Superior architecture and intuitive nature enables WebFOCUS to address the needs of everyone in the extended global enterprise -- executive, analytical, operational, and beyond. It provides the agility to adapt to changing business conditions with the security, scalability, and flexibility to support dozens to millions of users.

Unique to the company is the integration expertise it brings to the BI market. Information Builders iWay Software suite solves complex integration problems with pre-built components that require minimal custom programming. The award-winning combination of WebFOCUS and iWay gives Information Builders customers the ability to embrace the company motto: "Because Everyone Makes Decisions."

Information Builders is committed to customer service excellence with a Professional Services division that specializes in building custom applications using WebFOCUS and iWay Software. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business partners. Visit http://www.informationbuilders.com.

Contact Information: Press Contacts: Kathleen Moran Information Builders (917) 339-6313 Stephanie Fallon Emerge PR (617) 729-3176