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Do banks need a CRM system to assist large enterprises effectively?
CRM in Corporate Banking Increasing competition in the Financial Services Sector has orced banks banks to search or superior tools tools to ormulate business business strategies in order order to win clients and establish mutually mutually benecial, long-term relations with customers. In order to achieve these objectives, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool can be implemented. According to research conducted by the Tower Tower Group, banks banks do not explore alternative methods o gaining new cliinvest approximately 78% o their CRM budget into assisting ents or increasing their sales. Accordingly, their level o cusretail customers. The results conrm that the ser vices provid- tomer retention remains relatively low. ed by CRM systems are particularly useul or cl ients in the retail banking sector. In contrast, it seems that corporate banks Constructing a system based on a bank’s existing IT resourcharbour doubts over the potential eectiveness o CRM sys- es oten involves the high costs o development and ongotems because o the wide dierence between the approach ing maintenance as well as the r isk o implementing potento service delivery operations perormed by bank employees tially ineective technology. or retail customers and the servicing o large enterprises. The Comarch CRM Corporate Banking most common dierences are: highly personalised service provisioning or individual To help banks meet the demands o servicing corporate cuscustomers (individual customer segment), tomers, Comarch created the Comarch CRM Corporate Plat• complex sale processes, orm. In designing its highly eective system, Comarch oclose cooperation between proessionals rom dierent cused on achieving the ollowing objectives: departments during the initial stages o the preparation o • establishment o comprehensive customer proles, • fexible administration o sales and customer service, the oer and service provisioning, • high volume o transactions, • prompt responsiveness to sudden sale opportunities, • requent contact with various representatives o the given eective channels o communication between bank ementerprise. ployees and customers, • eective administration o sales rom: • the company headquarters or main oce Temporary solutions • various departments Corporate banks are orced to employ temporary tools to support customer relationship management because o the • account managers lack o appropriate solutions currently available on the mar- • wide range o possibilities to monitor and report, ket. Such tools are intended to suppor t only selected areas o modern administrative tools providing fexible system CRM. Two o the most common designs used to create solumaintenance. tions or corporate clients incorporate the ollowing: Implementation o specic applications dedicated to support The establishment o comprehensive customer proles enaparticular unctions, such as customer service or inormation ble employees to perorm accurate analyses. Employees who distribution. use the system are able to view the ollowing: Creation o a specic, internally-developed system and • range o products and services or customers, • history o client transactions and o perations, implemention based on the the bank’s existing IT resources. • transaction details, It is extremely difcult to manage multi-channel customer customer re- • potential Leads, lations without eective communication channels between a • list o sales leads and transactions, bank’s headquarters and its ront oce. Bank managers have inormation based on a customer’s customer ’s income level and involvelimited access to the analytical inormation used to provide ment in the rm’s asset management at the bank, names and corporate positions o enterprise representacustomer service and customer service departments are unable to transer sales data to a bank’s headquarters. tives, • corporate organizational structure, Corrupted data and the use o dierent applications are adlist o business organizations nancially related to the ditional obstacles that prevent the establishment o eective customer. customer relationship management procedures. As a result, •
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The creation o comprehensive customer proles ensures high levels o client satisaction and allows banks to optimize the multi-dimensional communication channels within the entire enterprise. A superior quality o customer service is available to corporate customers through the standardization o operations incorporated into Comarch’s CRM Corporate system. Standard operations are identied and subsequently implemented by a Technical Administrator who is responsible or dening and modiying the system. System modication perormed by a Technical Administrator will allow useul alerts and memos or users to be set up. In eect, the system is able to identiy sale opportunities and generate task reminders or specic announcements or bank employees. Sales opportunities are identied based on the complex translation o analyzed data. Sales managers are presented with new lists o: • sale leads, • competition analyses, • product and service descriptions, sale scripts containing inormation, including key points which should be brought to the attention o a client in order to increase the chances o a sale, description o marketing campaigns conducted to support the sale, speciically deined dates when customer contact is planned.
and orms. Additionally, the system allows sales representatives to generate inormation and deliver it to clients via email, post or other channels o communication. Comarch CRM Corporate system ensures proper unctioning and acilitates the ecient management o the sales department at all levels o the organization: headquarters, regional branches, operational branches and directly to sales sta. Sales Managers have at their disposal a special section dedicated to the preparation o sales target plans, which is divided into separate client segments, product and service types, designated time periods in which the plan is to be executed and distributed to selected branches, call centers, or directly to sales representatives. Established sales targets are registered in the system and then made available to selected employees in the main ofce as well as sales representatives. The system generates alerts and distributes them to employees i any problems arise. Besides the real-time monitoring o sales results, the system acilitates report denition and distribution. The reports can be generated statically dur ing designated time periods, dynamically in the case o identied events, or on an ad hoc basis to meet specic requirements.
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The date and time o each meeting is displayed in the electronic calendar stored in the system. Comarch CRM Corporate system also provides the option o integrating the calendar with Lotus Notes or MS Outlook. Additionally, a sales representative using Comarch CRM Corporate may easily retrieve a wide range o inormation regarding individual clients, including: transaction history, credit expiration date, customer protability and recent changes to regulations and instructions pertaining to each client.
Reports are particularly easy to read and analyze as a result o the development o special visual methods, including the use o GIS and multi-dimensional tools. In addition to the large number o business unctions available, Comarch CRM Corporate system is equipped with an administrative tool which boasts cutting-edge technology and enables the system to be managed fexibly. Authorized bank employees access the system via an easy-to-use, intuitive console available on an internet browser. The console allows the user to: • build and modiy samples o orms and contracts, • maintain user proles, • design security procedures or the system, • administer sales procedures.
Modern Architecture
The integration standard applied to Comarch’s CRM Corporate platorm is based on Service Or iented Architecture. The main Information Management Besides the dedicated sales unctionality, Comarch CRM Corpoobjective o this standard concerns the close integration o rate system allows complex inormation management through services and perormance. Perormance is based on requestan internal portal. The portal is managed by Comarch CMS – ing services without the need or the use o mechanisms rea state-o-the-art management system – which can be used sponsible or initiation, internal conditions and maintenance to administer the entire content o a large corporation. B ank during the lie cycle o the request. Through this approach, employees using the internal portal have immediate access to programmed components can be used by all banking sysselected inormation (e.g. Reuters economic news, other eco- tems and applications without the need to make additionnomic portals), economic analyses prepared by banking ex- al installations. Banking tools are integrated directly with the perts, as well as other nancial inormation, such as currency Comarch CRM Corporate inrastructure and with the standrates. The portal also contains multimedia presentations which ard user interace. Innovative unctions are designed exclucan be used during meetings with customers, marketing ma- sively or those areas in which existing solutions are currently terials, nancial simulators, and samples o business contracts insucient. Thereore, running a CRM project with Comar-
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ch’s CRM Corporate system decreases the elements o risk, cost and time.
Benefits and Advantages Comarch CRM Corporate system is known or its wide unctionality in the areas o corporate customer service delivered by nancial institutions.. Fundamental benets emerging rom the use o Comarch CRM Corporate system include: • service provisioning throughout the entire lie cycle o the corporate customer, rom the initial stages to the establishment o a close, long-term relationship with protable clients, optimization o the use o bank resources, such as alternative channels o distribution (internet and home banking), • signicant reduction in and limitation o operational costs through system automation and standardisation, • low maintenance and expansion costs owing to the use o modern administration tools which allow bank employees to make a wide range o modications to the system. •
Paweł Bojar Business Solution Manager Consulting Center or Financial Sector Comarch SA
This article appeared originally in Technology Review 2/2006 (04) © Comarch S.A. All rights reserved.
