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According to research conducted by the Tower Group, banks

invest approximately 78% o their CRM budget into assisting

retail customers. The results conrm that the services provid-

ed by CRM systems are particularly useul or cl ients in the re-

tail banking sector. In contrast, it seems that corporate banks

harbour doubts over the potential eectiveness o CRM sys-

tems because o the wide dierence between the approach

to service delivery operations perormed by bank employees

or retail customers and the servicing o large enterprises. The

most common dierences are:

highly personalised service provisioning or individual

customers (individual customer segment), complex sale processes,

close cooperation between proessionals rom dierent

departments during the initial stages o the preparation o

the oer and service provisioning,

high volume o transactions,

requent contact with various representatives o the given

enterprise.

Temporary solutionsCorporate banks are orced to employ temporary tools to

support customer relationship management because o the

lack o appropriate solutions currently available on the mar-

ket. Such tools are intended to support only selected areas o

CRM. Two o the most common designs used to create solu-

tions or corporate clients incorporate the ollowing:

Implementation o specic applications dedicated to support

particular unctions, such as customer service or inormation

distribution.

Creation o a specic, internally-developed system and

implemention based on the banks existing IT resources.

It is extremely difcult to manage multi-channel customer re-

lations without eective communication channels between abanks headquarters and its ront oce. Bank managers have

limited access to the analytical inormation used to provide

customer service and customer service departments are un-

able to transer sales data to a banks headquarters.

Corrupted data and the use o dierent applications are ad-

ditional obstacles that prevent the establishment o eective

customer relationship management procedures. As a result,

banks do not explore alternative methods o gaining new cli-

ents or increasing their sales. Accordingly, their level o cus-

tomer retention remains relatively low.

Constructing a system based on a banks existing IT resourc-

es oten involves the high costs o development and ongo-

ing maintenance as well as the r isk o implementing poten-

tially ineective technology.

Comarch CRM Corporate BankingTo help banks meet the demands o servicing corporate cus-

tomers, Comarch created the Comarch CRM Corporate Plat-

orm. In designing its highly eective system, Comarch o-

cused on achieving the ollowing objectives:

establishment o comprehensive customer proles,

fexible administration o sales and customer service,

prompt responsiveness to sudden sale opportunities,

eective channels o communication between bank em-

ployees and customers,

eective administration o sales rom:

the company headquarters or main oce

various departments

account managers

wide range o possibilities to monitor and report,

modern administrative tools providing fexible system

maintenance.

The establishment o comprehensive customer proles ena-

ble employees to perorm accurate analyses. Employees who

use the system are able to view the ollowing:

range o products and services or customers,

history o client transactions and operations,

transaction details,

potential Leads,

list o sales leads and transactions, inormation based on a customers income level and involve-

ment in the rms asset management at the bank,

names and corporate positions o enterprise representa-

tives,

corporate organizational structure,

list o business organizations nancially related to the

customer.

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 to search or superior tools

to ormulate business strategies in order to win clients and establish mutually benecial, long-term

relations with customers. In order to achieve these objectives, a Customer Relationship Management

(CRM) tool can be implemented.

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The creation o comprehensive customer proles ensures

high levels o client satisaction and allows banks to opti-

mize the multi-dimensional communication channels with-

in the entire enterprise.

A superior quality o customer service is available to corpo-

rate customers through the standardization o operations in-

corporated into Comarchs 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 Administra-

tor 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 pre-

sented 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.

The date and time o each meeting is displayed in the elec-

tronic calendar stored in the system. Comarch CRM Corpo-

rate system also provides the option o integrating the cal-

endar with Lotus Notes or MS Outlook.

Additionally, a sales representative using Comarch CRM Corpo-

rate may easily retrieve a wide range o inormation regarding

individual clients, including: transaction history, credit expira-

tion date, customer protability and recent changes to regu-

lations and instructions pertaining to each client.

Information ManagementBesides the dedicated sales unctionality, Comarch CRM Corpo-

rate system allows complex inormation management through

an internal portal. The portal is managed by Comarch CMS

a state-o-the-art management system which can be usedto administer the entire content o a large corporation. Bank

employees using the internal portal have immediate access to

selected inormation (e.g. Reuters economic news, other eco-

nomic portals), economic analyses prepared by banking ex-

perts, as well as other nancial inormation, such as currency

rates. The portal also contains multimedia presentations which

can be used during meetings with customers, marketing ma-

terials, nancial simulators, and samples o business contracts

and orms. Additionally, the system allows sales representa-

tives 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 depart-

ment at all levels o the organization: headquarters, region-

al branches, operational branches and directly to sales sta.

Sales Managers have at their disposal a special section dedi-

cated to the preparation o sales target plans, which is divid-

ed 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 direct-

ly to sales representatives. Established sales targets are regis-

tered in the system and then made available to selected em-

ployees 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 distribu-

tion. The reports can be generated statically during designat-

ed time periods, dynamically in the case o identied events,

or on an ad hoc basis to meet specic requirements.

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 avail-

able, 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, intui-

tive console available on an internet browser. The console al-

lows the user to:

build and modiy samples o orms and contracts,

maintain user proles,

design security procedures or the system,

administer sales procedures.

Modern ArchitectureThe integration standard applied to Comarchs CRM Corporate

platorm is based on Service Oriented Architecture. The main

objective o this standard concerns the close integration o

services and perormance. Perormance is based on request-

ing services without the need or the use o mechanisms re-

sponsible or initiation, internal conditions and maintenanceduring the lie cycle o the request. Through this approach,

programmed components can be used by all banking sys-

tems and applications without the need to make addition-

al installations. Banking tools are integrated directly with the

Comarch CRM Corporate inrastructure and with the stand-

ard user interace. Innovative unctions are designed exclu-

sively or those areas in which existing solutions are currently

insucient. Thereore, running a CRM project with Comar-

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chs CRM Corporate system decreases the elements o risk,

cost and time.

Benefits and AdvantagesComarch CRM Corporate system is known or its wide unc-

tionality 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 thecorporate customer, rom the initial stages to the establish-

ment 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.

Pawe 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.