– Are You Planning For Success In Corporate Banking?
Planning for 2015 capital investment deadlines will be a stressful exercise. The question on everyone’s mind in the organization: What should be on my investment list? Here are a few questions you should be asking to help with your planning:
- What are you doing to transform your organization into one that is more digital? Specifically, that means less paper, more automation and better multi-channel customer experiences.
- How will you take advantage of digital and mobile trends?
- Are you creating a unified onboarding experience which, when done correctly, can also be the key to digitization?
- Are you creating one face of the bank for servicing interactions?
- What is your strategic differentiation vs. key competitors? Are there projects that make you stand out in RFPs or client interactions? (Note: Stats prove clients will accept higher prices for additional functionality or better client experiences.)
- Are you ready for an expansion in lending if things keep heating up and interest rates rise?
- Are you doing stop-gap compliance? Or, is it strategic renovations to the processes that provide other value to the client or organization?
With respect to unified onboarding, be sure any solution solves your specific key pain points (and think cross-silo credit, treasury management, trade, FX, etc. as your client does):
- Collect the right information at the right time
Processes that prompt the sales,underwriting, and implementation teams to collect the right information at the right time while maintaining a good customer experience, particularly when it comes to KYC/Due Diligence, application data gathering, initial deal
configuration, and closing and funding of credit.
- Present the right information to the client at the right time
Have you reviewed your initial deal proposal communications and process as well as the final pricing and sales communication process? Is it clear and consistent across all channels? Are there good processes for non-standard proposals, etc.?
- Managing complex entitlement/mandates
Are you simplifying and creating transparency for corporates to manage this process via all channels or via self-service? Is there one place to view a corporates individuals, roles, entitlements, and monetary authority?
- Rekeying data into multiple systems
Are you eliminating data re-entry, or did you just off-shore it for labour arbitrage? Once you outsource, it can be tough to build the case for automation which speeds credit decisions, time to transact, and improves the client experience. Does your offshore/near
shore process accomplish all of that?
Are you pulling data from multiple areas to show the overall corporate client experience and speed to onboarding? Do your processes automatically route work and send escalation communications when SLAs are not met?
Many of the pain points above can also be seen in sales interactions, corporate client servicing, and exceptions management, so when you consider a solution for one area, think ahead. Could this same case management or business process tool be used to improve
your sales process or increase upsell revenue? Could it be used to provide better client servicing inquiry automation? Could you extend this to your client via the Web or mobile for self-service? Could you automate back-office exceptions?
In many cases your teams will want point solutions for their projects, but it’s far better to think of the overall client experience and organization when considering solutions. It is the myriad of legacy technology and disparate vendor packages that we
are constantly trying to tie together for a better experience.
These tips can help you get to the final list you submit for executive approval. And don’t forget to add in the 15% of projects to kill once finance figures out each division’s capital budget must take a haircut at the last minute in November.