Futuristic CRM

Although FinTech is still in its infancy around technology disruption, it has shown a tremendous growth potential over this last year. This is blatantly evident from the surge of killer consumer applications, optimizing many of the core transactional functions e.g. banking, payment gateways etc. Cloud computing, Mobile UX, Data analysis (Now Big), and Service Desks (Self-service platforms) will continue to play a significant role in redefining individual functional areas.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM), albeit in its evolved form, will be responsible for serving up the Fabric which will channelize handover across these functional apps. For e.g. Loyalty rewards can be dynamically analyzed and bridged to new product trial offers, for specifically targeting cross-selling opportunities and behaviour-based campaigns.

Does it mean we will stop receiving 0% balance transfer mailers from our financial institutes? Maybe!

Leading CRM vendors like Microsoft, Salesforce & Zoho CRM continue to further expand platform capabilities (PaaS) targeting specific functional areas – Directly within their Product and Indirectly via their Partner eco-system (Frameworks/ Managed Apps). However, ample opportunity exists to bridge these siloed applications and create a customer-driven Financial Relationship Application. Over time, we will see these products to have specific Frameworks & Apps pre-configured and tightly integrated; which will help in faster go-to-market rollouts for Financial products and businesses.

In the interim, success will be dependent on the following:

• Being aware of the changing industry
• Aligning business capabilities with consumer behaviors and
• Focusing on agile adoption for modular yet drastic changes across functional areas

To top that there will be an explicit adoption framework necessary for each of the two Service areas:

• Consumer Service – e.g. Self-service, Handheld device engagement, Full cycle transactional activities and
• Institutional Services – e.g. Expandability to cater to varietal of investors and investor types, New Product Introduction etc.

Does this sound like a steep hill? Yes, it is.

A SaaS-based CRM application remains the industry de-facto with Enterprise class capabilities, scalability, security and operational efficiencies. In its end state, it must display innate abilities to roll out additional capabilities that are configurable and user intuitive:

1. Customer Engagement across Integrated Social channels. This will particularly impact customer-centricity and cross-selling of products thereby impacting revenue
2. Provide a Mash-App ecosystem which provides a consumer a seamless experience across multiple product portfolios – Banking, Risk Management, Payment capabilities, Financial Planning & Underwriting.
3. Adaptive Security Architecture to lock down customer data across channels; yet increase leveraging of information across functional areas
4. Machine Learning Predictive Analysis to improve product alignment, pricing strategies and also reduce customer attritions
5. Marketing Campaigns based by Customer’s DNA. FinServices remains one of the largest hoarders of consumer details. Although, regulatory in nature, the primary bottleneck is in intelligently utilizing this data
6. Ability to present Transaction-centric & Customer-centric view of their data to measure and improve KPIs

Some of the leading FinTech products have evolved over last five years. But increased marketing, investment funds and evolution of buyer’s behaviors will accelerate their growth hereafter. It will also be easier than ever for smaller, innovative technology startups to quickly turn their ideas into marketable products across multiple channels. The disruption is inevitable and we can only be prepared to align to these industry changes.

By Sourin Paul