Zoot Receives Industry Patent for Enterprise Cross-Sell Management Solution

Patented Technology Helps Financial Institutions Build Customer Loyalty, Reduce Risk

BOZEMAN, Mont.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Zoot, a leading provider of advanced instant credit decisioning and loan origination solutions, announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the issuance of U.S. Patent Number 7,805,330 for the company’s enterprise cross-sell management solution.

The patent application is entitled “System and Method for Cross-Selling Products and Services Across an Enterprise”. Prior attempts to solve for cross-sell management typically deployed a single, monolithic software platform that was difficult, time-consuming and risky to change. This invention remedies the technological challenges, particularly for financial institutions, of implementing an effective strategy for increasing sales to customers while appropriately managing risk. Zoot deployed the first successful enterprise cross-sell solution for a top-10 U.S. bank in 2006.

“Being able to take action based on an enterprise view of customer relationships is critically important to organizations today,” said Warren Bauder, vice president of enterprise architecture for Zoot and one of the named co-inventors on the patent.

Zoot’s enterprise cross-sell management solution integrates diverse point of contact systems and rule engine processing. The patented technology offers a single decisioning infrastructure that meets the differing needs of each line of business (LOB). Creating a common set of attributes, rulesets, data sources and audit trails allows central risk managers to effectively govern enterprise factors. Direct control of business rules and product management allow LOBs to independently control their business, while staying in sync with the enterprise.

Additionally, cross-sell results are stored in a single data repository, making access for reporting and analysis simpler and more efficient. The solution’s design-time environment allows business users to adjust cross-sell strategy, credit policy and any other business rules in real-time, eliminating the lengthy development and testing normally associated with such changes.

“It has been known for many years that customer loyalty and retention is improved by establishing multiple relationships with the customer. Enterprise cross-sell is an enabling technology that allows an organization to cross-sell additional products to their existing customers as well as open multiple products simultaneously with brand new customers,” said Bauder. “As organizations increase their cross-selling efforts, it has become increasingly important to utilize enabling technology that helps you sell the right products at the right time, but also evaluate enterprise risk at the same time.”

Tom Johnson, Warren Bauder, Gretchen Bauder, LeRoy Verwolf, Mark Douma, Rob Calhoun, Scott Bridges, Bill Porter, Nan DeVault, Ryan DeGraw, Tim Stevens and Brad Benjamin are inventors of the patent issued to Zoot Enterprises on September 28, 2010.

For more information about how this invention can support your financial institution visit the company’s enterprise cross-sell webpage.

About Zoot

Bozeman, Mont.-based Zoot provides comprehensive credit decisioning, loan origination and credit risk management solutions to enable clients’ unique business objectives, leading to long-term relationships with top U.S. banks. Zoot’s rapid, high-volume processing environment has the capacity to process billions of transactions per year. Visit http://www.zootweb.com, call 406-556-7555 or email [email protected] for more information.

Editor’s Note

The examples given in this release focus primarily on the financial services industry. However, the invention could be used in any industry comprising multiple lines of business where cross-selling across an enterprise is desired.

For Zoot EnterprisesKaren Gordon, 406-556-8977

Source: Zoot Enterprises