While making his appointments for the day, a small business banker plans on visiting a dry cleaner. The banker needs information quickly on that particular industry and doesn't have time to search through multiple sources.

If the banker works at St. Louis, Mo.-based Commerce Bancshares Inc., he can go directly into his customer relationship management system and find relevant information about the dry cleaning industry linked to the client's name.

"If we're going to call on a company or business that we know little about, we've got to be asking the right kinds of questions," says Andrew Kaplan, an executive vice president of Commerce. "Nobody wants to have to educate bankers on their business."

In January, Commerce became the first bank to install an upgraded version of Industry Intelligence Tools, a two-year old product by Raleigh, N.C.-based First Research Inc. that provides a broad range of industry-specific information. The tool uses XML open source coding and Web services to link directly to a bank's CRM system, says Bobby Martin, president of First Research.

By enabling applications to share information over the Internet, Martin says, a banker looking at a customer record can access industry information from the same site, saving several click-throughs. Industry Intelligence Tools XML integrates easily with a broad range of CRM systems and intranets, he adds.

Commerce uses the tool to serve a wide range of companies, from one-employee startups to Fortune 100 companies, Kaplan says. Both the small business banking group, which works with companies with up to $2.5 million in annual sales and is part of retail operations, and the separate commercial banking unit use it, he says.

Kaplan says the tool enables Commerce's relationship officers, credit evaluators and senior management to get a cram course on everything from an industry's competitive and regulatory landscape to the nuts and bolts of how that business operates.

Alenka Grealish, the manager of the banking group at Boston-based consulting firm Celent LLC, says Industry Intelligence Tools is unique in packaging internal and external information. She says commercial bankers usually lack the technology to pull external information on their business customers and relationship managers usually lack the time to do extra research.

"I do believe incrementally this improvement is important," she says. "Anything that makes information easy to access and digest is great, because it means bankers don't have to waste time hunting."

The product's cost is based on the size of the bank; unlimited access for an $800 million-asset institution is $8,000 annually, according to First Research. "It's not for the faint of heart," admits Kaplan.

Commerce measures its return on investment through anecdotes from customers and employees. It also tracks the number of employee log-ins, Kaplan says.

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