All About The Technology

There's a reason Timothy Shack, CIO of PNC Financial Services Group Inc., is also head of several of the company's business units. It's because without technology, the units have no business.

The units he heads, which include PFPC Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary that provides record-keeping and accounting services to mutual-fund companies, heavily depend on IT. PFPC administers 48 million shareholder accounts and $1.5 trillion in assets. As a fee-based business, it makes money by keeping expenses to a minimum while obtaining maximum leverage from technology.

The winning strategy for processing businesses such as PNC's, Shack says, entails reengineering business processes, implementing new technologies such as imaging, and holding costs down. But mostly it's about giving customers what they want. PNC, which has $67 billion in assets, treats institutional clients as "segments of one," Shack says. "We have to do things that allow them to differentiate themselves to their customers."

Shack predicts that IT budgets will experience growth in the "low-to-middle single digits" this year. PNC has been trying to leverage its own IT spending by cutting costs in lights-on operations and applying the savings to money-making services such as check imaging.