GoldIntraNet Case Study - Wilson Bank

First Community Bank (FCB) knows the importance of efficiency and good service. The bank has been serving Hawkins and Sullivan Counties in Northeast Tennessee since 1993. Their customers have grown to expect the dedication to service excellence they provide to the community.

The five-branch bank has grown to more than $160 million in assets and continues to steadily expand their services into new markets in the surrounding communities with aggressive plans to open additional branches in the next few years.

Business Situation
According to Mark Gamble, President and Chief Executive Officer of the bank, FCB needed an intranet to help accommodate their growth plans and help streamline their operations. He felt an intranet would provide a much more efficient means of storing and distributing information as well as provide for a consistent method for communicating with their employees. “Our goal was to establish a central place where people could easily find the information necessary for their jobs and improve internal communications,” said Gamble. “We wanted a better way to inform employees about bank policies and procedures as well as current news in the financial industry.”

The bank wanted an intranet with more than document storage and minimal file sharing capabilities. They carefully considered developing an in-house solution but a detailed analysis of their business issues – including cost, time-to-market, and required resources – established that it was far too time consuming and expensive to even consider building an in-house intranet from scratch. Most of all, FCB needed an intranet solution that was user-friendly, secure, and affordable.

The Solution
The bank did research on the technologies available to meet the organization’s needs and selected a turn-key intranet solution from Goldleaf Technologies, a provider of web-based intranet solutions designed especially for community banks. FCB chose Goldleaf’s GoldIntraNet software as the best overall approach to entering the world of intranets.

The bank wanted to get an intranet up and running quickly, but at the same time minimize disruption to their employees and IT staff. “Goldleafprovided a turn-key solution and gave us a cost-effective immediate intranet,” said Gamble. “Furthermore, the ease of use of the GoldIntraNet system gives my department managers access to developing and sharing content without relying on IT to deliver or change the information.”

Gamble points out that in the banking business, things can change very fast and paper documents go out of date pretty quickly. “Today with GoldIntraNet if we need to change a policy to accommodate a new regulation or respond quickly to our market place with a change in rates, new products or services we can make this information available to all employees immediately with a click of the mouse.” A process that in the past has been extremely paper-intensive and time-consuming.

“ The move to GoldIntraNet was a smart one for First Community Bank,” Gamble said. “Not only have we gained the opportunity to increase efficiency, adding immediate value bank wide, we have also prepared for the future in taking full advantage of the inherent benefits of an intranet solution and moving away from old paper-based systems.”