In the anatomy of a financial services organization, software is the circulatory system. It picks up the data in the brain, or database, and delivers it to where it's needed. It connects all the parts of the body together and ensures the body is working well as a single entity.
So, when a system stops receiving support or development, it affects the health of the entire company. It can become expensive to maintain, difficult to upgrade, or so obsolete it risks pulling the company behind the competition. When people can’t or aren’t using the system, or when the system isn’t able to provide the functionality that’s needed, the organization must replace it.
For example, one of NexJ’s customers recently migrated off their Siebel system to NexJ’s solution. The Siebel system was at the end of its life and hadn’t been upgraded since 2008. Poor user adoption, an outdated user interface, and a lack of modern CRM capabilities were major concerns.
In NexJ’s experience, user adoption is key to the success of any system. If employees aren’t using the system, it can’t be effective. The company chose NexJ because our flexible integration allows them to weave enterprise data together into a comprehensive customer view, and provide seamless access to the complete, financial services-specific functionality each user needs to service clients. The resulting integrated desktop improves user adoption because it provides users with what they need and want in a system, when they need and want it.
The organization also wanted a modern user interface and enhanced CRM functionality to improve productivity and efficiency, and offer a better user experience. They were looking for specific enhancements related to their business needs. NexJ worked with them to design a user interface that fully aligned with their requirements and standards. Because the Siebel system is obsolete, many of the features that have become a standard part of modern Customer Relationship Management were unavailable. NexJ’s solution enabled the firm to roll out best-of-breed CRM for financial services, as well as strategic CRM functionality and workflows for Capital Markets. For example, automating workflows and common business processes reduces manual workload and the duplication of data. This saves individual users time and ensures that procedures are consistently followed. Another example of feature advancement is customer insights and analytics. Improvements provide a decision support system that helps users better understand and capitalize on the customer’s needs, the company’s interactions with the customer, and the customer’s buying cycle.
Because companies often have many applications that are not aware of one another, and also many different data sources, integration is key to modern CRM. The NexJ Integrated Desktop offers a customer-centric view of front, middle, and back-office information and integrates with enterprise data stores and applications in a single, seamless application. This helps support superior customer service by providing users with all of the information and functionality they need in one place.
Another thing that renders systems obsolete is the fact that they don’t take into account how an industry evolves. Vertical CRM is a Customer Relationship Management solution created and deployed specifically for a particular industry. It supports how a financial services organization does business, and its existing business processes.
The health of a financial services organization can be severely affected by outdated systems because the modern economic climate is competitive. If your system is outdated, you can’t provide the service customers expect, nor the capabilities your users need. By sunsetting your obsolete system and upgrading to a modern CRM system, you can foster customer loyalty and improve your market share. To find out how, get in touch with us today.
