Quantum² : InfoStars : Marie-Paule Declercq

Marie-Paule Declercq

Managing an Ambitious Agenda at the Bank of Belgium

When the Bank of Belgium, the country's largest bank, restructured in 1993, it unified all business information services into a single department based in Brussels, and named Marie Paule Declercq to head the group. Today, Business Information Services (BIS) consists of 29 people who are responsible for all aspects of acquiring and disseminating both internal and external information for all bank offices throughout Belgium.

Deckercq and her staff have an ambitious agenda. Three people in her department are devoted to the purchase of all external information, both print and electronic—no small task. External sources are analyzed both for the quality of their data and for its cost effectiveness. The group also studies both the market and their client needs, and assesses which sources best meet them. They also decide, in collaboration with the departments concerned and the Information Technology group, which departments will receive end-user access to specific databases, and they arrange for the necessary training, which is often conducted by BIS.

The largest group, numbering 18, consists of the information brokers. They are responsible for answering the 30,000 questions a year received by Business Information Services. And that's just the start. BIS staff members synthesize information from a variety of sources to create value-added reports for their clients, and they test new external databases and CD-ROMs for BIS and other departments.

One of the most important tasks the information brokers are charged with is creating internal databases for the bank, determining what information is needed and locating appropriate sources. These databases, which combine internal documents and external sources, focus on Belgian companies and on economic and financial data affecting Belgium. They are vital to the bank, because a limited number of outside resources concentrates primarily on Belgium. The remaining seven department members are technicians responsible for loading and maintaining the internal databases.

Because BIS serves offices of the bank throughout the country, marketing BIS's services is important to Declercq. She produces a monthly newsletter for all BIS clients and has toured bank offices in Antwerp, Ghent, and other large Belgian cities, introducing bank staff to the vast information resources available to them through the Brussels office.

Declercq considers herself lucky to work for an organization as enlightened as the Bank of Belgium. "The bank clearly understands the value of information," she says. "They encourage us to create new value-added products and services, and they willingly invest in the resources that we need for future success, from sophisticated database software to an Intranet that will enable us to expand end-user searching throughout the bank."