NEW YORK, NY – January 13, 2010 – (RealEstateRama) — The Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), a New York-based nonprofit that helps finance and develop multi-family housing in the metropolitan area, today announced it is working with IBM (NYSE: IBM) to manage its technology infrastructure and loan processing applications, helping CPC increase processing speed and efficiency, minimize human latency and improve quality and reliability.
The rollout falls on the heels of the Corporation’s recent $1 billion credit offering to New York State apartment building owners, a green initiative that is expected to be fulfilled by 2013. IBM’s project with CPC complements the initiative with green elements like paper reduction, energy savings and new capabilities that will enable CPC to process applications for the initiative faster and more proficiently.
Since its inception 35 years ago, CPC has financed more than 136,000 new or rehabbed units in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut using a paper-based processing and filing system. IBM worked with CPC to develop support and enhancement processes for a new first of its kind application to manage construction loans advances, investor relations, reporting, and internal controls, automating numerous processes formerly dispersed throughout various departments of the company. The upgrade allows CPC to improve data management, standardization and auditability, and has resulted in a significant reduction in manager review time for construction advance processing, an average of 2 days to 1 hour, the first critical step in construction financing.
“CPC works with over 90 partners from commercial banks, savings institutions, insurance companies and government agencies to provide the means for building sustainable communities in the metropolitan area. We had a pressing need to modernize our information management system to maintain strong relationships and best utilize a new software application,” said John McCarthy, executive vice president of CPC. “By partnering with IBM, CPC can start tackling increasing demands congruent with the improving housing market, and achieve our mission of building more sustainable communities.”
In addition to support for new software applications, CPC also outsourced its technology infrastructure to IBM data centers including, email, virtual servers, maintenance, security, and system administration, a significant milestone for a small company. In less than a year, CPC has realized significant cost savings, reduced power usage, increased efficiency and improved quality in management by giving staff an opportunity to focus on their core competencies rather than clerical and administrative work.
“CPC is growing at an exponential rate – having an intricate understanding of its change in workload was critical to delivering the right services and applications to help them exceed their goals and meet increasing demands,” said Joyce Bordash, vice president of general business at IBM.
