It seemed like the perfect dare to end 2020 with: Take on some of the world's leading CRM and CX tech providers in a battle that had nothing to do with what we usually do best.

How secure are wealth managers today? This simple, yet interesting question, can yield different answers depending upon when it is asked.

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of communication when it comes to the relationship between wealth managers and clients.

The definition of value has evolved over the past few months for financial services firms as well as their customers.

Advisors in financial services firms work with more and more data over time.

Which five albums would you like to be stranded on a desert island with?

In a post-pandemic world that frowns upon unnecessary risk-taking, the question all firms should be asking is: Can an RFP ever be enough?

For those in Wealth Management, what has emerged is the acknowledgment that customer engagement is more critical than ever before. 

Advisors who understand their clients better, and then use this understanding to meet specific needs more effectively, are going to emerge from this unprecedented crisis in better shape than the rest.

It is based upon the fact that customer expectations have changed across businesses and sectors, with customers now expecting the same kind of engagement from financial institutions that they do with other products or services.

Support

Our customers will continue to experience the same superior level of support they are accustomed to from our global support organization.

Innovation and a global approach

You may have the best possible CRM solution on the market, a deep vertical award-winning software geared to meet your every need. What you will always struggle with is poor user 

We put forth a few questions to Andrew Cant, our VP, Financial Services Solutions, about what some institutions call Concierge Service, others Platinum

The private banking industry uses all sorts of labels, from Concierge Service and Platinum Service to High-End, Superior, Luxury or Premium Service, to describe something very elemental: The need for customers to feel special. We get that. 

As the leader of a Customer Experience/Customer Success department, you get a lot of 'You're the guy who has to make sure that are customers happy’. While I like the idea of happy customers (Who doesn’t?), this is not how I would describe the

Salesforce, for example, always manages to make us smile. Last year, the question posed by its co-CEO after his company acquired MuleSoft for $6.5 billion was: “…this is integration software, what does that have to do with CRM?”

I know the first question that pops into many people’s heads when they hear about programs such as these is: ‘Why not wait until we find out more before signing up?’ That’s a valid question but, when it involves a CRM product from an 

Data migration involves a change in storage and database or application, which is what makes it a potentially complicated process. This is why we, at NexJ Systems, adopt industry best practices while managing migrations from legacy systems, using our extensive tooling and significant experience with client data encompassing a varying degree of size and scope.

Take Machine Learning and Deep Learning, both of which make an appearance whenever a discussion of AI begins. What defines Machine Learning? How does it work? Isn't Deep Learning just another form of Machine Learning? We thought it made sense to try and simplify answers to those knotty questions. So, here goes.

Today, firms have access to information at an unprecedented level and must contend with a highly regulated industry as well as the commodification of products and services. For a CRM solution like NexJ, this represents a challenge as well as a great deal of opportunity, because more information about a customer is a powerful tool when used effectively.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed all kinds of industries and workplaces in a number of significant ways. Attitudes towards the use of AI have also shifted, along with the ways in which it has been approached. One of the biggest shifts has been the emphasis on top-down reasoning rather than bottom-up big data. 

When users spend a great deal of time collecting onboarding data, the drain on a user’s time means they have less time to spend on revenue-generating activities. When data is housed solely in an onboarding solution, the information that can’t be shared between systems is lost for processes performed outside of the onboarding software.

This is more true for the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning than others, which is why our developers have put together a list of more commonly used terms to help you tell your Algorithms from your Active Learning, and Selection Bias from Sentiment Analysis.

Financial services organizations are accepting the advantages of cloud deployment because they are seeing that unified ecosystems, more agility, and better management of investments are all great for business. The cloud can be daunting though, for organizations that aren't clear about their priorities or don't have access to the expertise required to maintain or secure data effectively.

Working with data is always tricky because there's so much that can go wrong so quickly. Any CRM solution that claims to do its job well has to deal not just with data duplication or conflicts, but with third-party applications, back-office systems that don't talk to each other, external systems and a seemingly unlimited number of integration points. 

Here's an interesting piece of information that got lost in the hype surrounding Salesforce's biggest deal ever. Apparently, the acquisition of MuleSoft in March for $6.5 billion was met with skepticism by senior management, until they were gently informed by a financial services firm of the importance of connecting data that is stored in disparate systems.

 “Vertical CRM will be the preferred CRM Choice in the next three years”¹

Trying to tell corporate and investment bankers about the importance of understanding their customers is a lot like listing the benefits of butter to a pastry chef. They get it. They know it really, really well. And yet, considering we are in the business of Customer Relationship Management, I sometimes can't help but question what this means.

Wealth management is about trust. It is about giving an advisor control of your financial health and security and depending upon that advisor to make or recommend decisions that help you meet your financial goals. When we, as CRM vendors, focus on features that give our products an edge, we always focus on how specific features can help advisors build more trust. This is what makes relationship hierarchies so important.

 “VerticalCRM will be the preferred CRM Choice in the next three years”¹

What’s it all mean?

Continuous Integration lets lots of people work on one project at the same time, while merging their work together in a central place regularly. This maintains the most recent version, so everyone is checking in or out only the latest code.

Our CRM capabilities and features are targeted towards a specific set of users, job requirements, or departments within an organization.

How does NexJ do it?

It makes perfect sense here too, because a Continuous Delivery Pipeline is nothing but a set of steps that code changes must go through to make their way to production. This Pipeline has four elements — Continuous Exploration (CE), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment, and Release on Demand.

We empathize. Really, we do. We are an award-winning software company thanks to CRM products that help financial services organizations globally, which is why we empathize the minute ‘compliance’ is mentioned. 

Picture this: You, an advisor at a financial services firm, are interacting with customers. You have at your disposal an enormous amount of information related to their likes and dislikes, along with a comprehensive overview of their finances. 

The Financial Services industry is a fast-paced environment. With constantly changing and increasing compliance regulations, client expectations, and access to information, financial services organizations need access to the newest and best tools. 

The increasing popularity of internet banking and mobile access are paired with increasing regulation and scrutiny. This means both more possibility for issues and more consequences when issues arise. NexJ enables firms to manage and protect information with a robust, centralized security model.

This is a question that increasingly occupies a lot of minds across industries. For financial service providers, it depends on not just how their customer data is stored and protected, but how it is processed and used on a day to day basis. 

I am often reminded of a specific parable whenever someone drops the words 'cloud', 'private cloud', 'hybrid cloud' or 'SaaS'. It's the one about the blind men and an elephant, who describe the animal based on which part of its anatomy they feel, then come to blows because they assume the others are being dishonest. 

A lot of people have the misconception that getting banks to change is like pulling teeth. It's a misplaced analogy, first because banks really are more open to embracing emerging technologies than most people think, and second because the last time pulling teeth was painful was probably around 1846, when the first successful surgical procedure was performed with anesthesia.

In my last blog, I discussed NexJ's first three best practices of user adoption, and why developing, analyzing, and aligning are crucial steps in the process of engaging your users with your CRM. Today, I'd like to discuss the next three of the 9 best practices for user adoption, which are planning, partnering, and encouraging.

In a previous blog, I discussed how to measure your user adoption rates, and the effectiveness of comparing quantitative and qualitative results. Because users can log into your CRM system, without actually using it, it's possible to have extremely high quantitative results without having high user adoption.

Enterprise computing is undergoing a revolution, but it’s not the first.  It has undergone a number of phases, or waves, throughout its history, each looking to introduce efficiencies in how we work. The first two waves of computing were centered on the back-office. 

To deliver optimal value to our customers, NexJ leverages our vast experience in deploying our software at the most recognized financial services firms in the world, our strict focus on addressing the specific business needs of the sub-vertical markets within financial services and our fervent passion for innovation.

Analytics and machine learning are all about data.  The quality and quantity of your data plays a critical role in determining the effectiveness of the models.  But even with reams of the best data, if your process doesn’t use it properly, your results will be dubious.

http://dmradio.dataversity.net/julia-python-r-the-rise-of-jupyter-notebooks/

Click above to listen to Martin Sykora, on DM Radio. Martin joins the discussion at the ten-minute mark, and for the roundtable discussion at the 49-minute mark!

In "The Great Wealth Transfer is Coming, Putting Advisers at Risk," an article in Investment News, they pointed out that 66% of heirs fire their parents' financial adviser after they receive an inheritance. Marketing Wiz's "The State of Independent Financial Marketing" whitepaper discusses how every day, $2 billion in assets move from Baby Boomers to Generation X and Generation Y heirs. Combining these two statistics paints a concerning picture for financial advisors. How can Wealth Management firms address the needs of these inheriting children, to prevent losing 66% of their asset base?

The customer experience, now more than ever, is the bar we use to predict the health and growth potential of a business. Most major financial institutions are taking this to heart by adapting their services to deliver the “delightful” customer experience we’ve come to expect as consumers (think Amazon, Netflix, and Uber.) I was reminded of the sea change that is moving our industry towards intelligent customer management while at the Chief Data Analytics Officers (CDAO) event in Boston last month. I contributed to a panel discussion about the emergence of machine learning in financial services, where I was joined by industry peers with first-hand experience transforming their business with data-driven insights. The efforts of fellow panelists and thought leaders, like José Murillo of Banorte, were on full display. Our lively exchange made clear that the disruptive forces of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning are here to stay.

Last week's CDAO presentation on Single-Family Data Governance & Management by Freddie Mac illustrated how traditional back office activities are aligning and impacting front office processes.  We continue our recap of lessons learned at CDAO with this week's focus on risk management. This April, we were delighted to attend as well as participate in the Financial Services-focused Chief Data & Analytics Officer conference in Boston.  This annual gathering brought together senior-level data practitioners in financial services to share their latest innovations, best practices, challenges and use cases.  The concept of monetizing or commercializing data assets is revolutionizing the Financial Services industry by using governed data strategies partnered with business initiatives to realize data-driven transformation benefits.

This April, we were delighted to attend as well as participate in the Financial Services-focused Chief Data & Analytics Officer conference in Boston. This annual gathering brought together senior-level data practitioners in financial services to share their latest innovations, best practices, challenges and use cases.

Our hard work continues to get noticed as Nucleus Research, a global research and advisory firm, has once again recognized us as an Expert in their most recent CRM Value Matrix.