<p> Microsoft Dynamics Customer Solution Case Study</p><p>Bank Deepens Customer Relationships with 360-Degree View, Cuts Enhancement Time </p><p>Overview “Customers must feel that they are really taken care of. With Country or Region: Sweden Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we now have the data and Industry: Financial services—Banking workflows at hand to provide this really attentive, proactive Customer Profile SEB Wealth Management, a division of service.” Swedish Bank SEB, provides wealth Cilla Wahlström, Global System Owner, CRM, SEB Wealth Management management services to institutions and high net-worth individuals. The division is Financial advisors at SEB Wealth Management, a division of SEB, located in Stockholm and has 1,300 one of Sweden’s premier banks, demand in-depth knowledge employees. about their high-worth customers to provide the very best Business Situation service. The company is replacing its homegrown customer The division’s older, homegrown customer relationship management relationship management (CRM) system with one built on (CRM) application had become too Microsoft Dynamics CRM. SEB Wealth Management was able to customized to meet its needs, and advisors wanted a more modern, user- complete the first phase of the rollout in just five months and friendly system. create an engaging, easy-to-use interface by using Microsoft </p><p>Solution Silverlight. With the new system, SEB financial advisors have a The bank used Microsoft Dynamics CRM better view of their customers’ portfolios and lives so that they to create WM360, a CRM system customized for the needs of financial can serve them better. With the development efficiencies planning and wealth management, which provided by Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft gives bank employees a 360-degree view of customers. development tools, the CRM team has sped up the rollout of new features by 50 percent and now spends 75 percent of its Benefits Stronger customer relationships CRM budget on development and only 25 percent on Radically shortened development time maintenance. Increased business agility Situation line-of-business (LOB) applications, but Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) is one advisors still needed to log on and off of of Sweden’s four largest banks, with 22,000 multiple applications every day to get all employees around the world and a full the information needed to respond to range of banking services. SEB Wealth customer inquiries. Management, a division of SEB, provides asset management and private banking Advisors asked that the CRM system be services to customers in the Nordic modified to suit their individual ways of countries, the Baltics, England, Germany, working, and Wahlström obliged by making Luxembourg, Poland, Singapore, and many customizations. “We were so intent Switzerland. Institutions, high net-worth on meeting the needs of advisors that we individuals, and retail customers have did not think about long-term entrusted SEB Wealth Management with supportability or consistency across the approximately SEK1.2 trillion (U.S.$1.6 business,” Wahlström says. billion) in assets. The Stockholm-based division of SEB employs 1,300 professionals After a few years, the CRM system had worldwide. become nearly impossible to support. Also, as SEB Wealth Management increased the Customer relationships are critical to SEB size of its advisor community, Wahlström Wealth Management, because the bank is could no longer keep up with the helping individuals manage their wealth customization requests from the business. during their lifetime and for generations to Legal requirements, too, dramatically come. “Our customers require a lot more increased in the mid-2000s, and SEB attention than most retail banking Wealth Management spent a great deal of customers,” says Cilla Wahlström, Global time incorporating these requirements into System Owner, CRM, for SEB Wealth the highly customized system. “After 10 Management. “To serve our customers, we years, the older system just started falling need to know them in great depth, not only apart,” Wahlström says. “Seventy-five every financial detail but how they spend percent of our budget was spent on their time, what their kids are studying in maintaining this system and only 25 school, and what their goals are in life. percent on developing new features.” These customers expect us to be there for them with the information they want, and Advisors also complained that the program at any time, to give them the service they looked its age. “Our users told us that they need.” wanted the application to be more like Facebook and other Internet applications,” In 1999, SEB Wealth Management was says Henrik Ponthan, Business Specialist ahead of its time in creating one of the first CRM for SEB Wealth Management. “They early customized customer relationship told us that they wanted the interface to management (CRM) systems to help its have ‘bling’—that’s actually the word they financial advisors gain the kind of in-depth used—meaning more graphics and customer knowledge they needed. The interactivity.” system had links to some of the company’s </p><p>26 Developers said the same thing. “They were Customizable to Fit Business Needs bored to death with the old system, so SEB Wealth Management chose to much so that I was afraid they were going customize Microsoft Dynamics CRM to to quit,” Wahlström says. further fit its needs, but the effort was much easier than that required by the Solution original system. “The most attractive things In 2005, the SEB Wealth Management about Microsoft Dynamics CRM were its office in Luxembourg worked with an familiar programming foundation and its outside firm to build a new CRM system, flexibility,” Ponthan says. “We could use its but the effort dragged on expensively for extensive functionality out of the box, but several years. “Despite a great deal of also customize it to support our processes. effort, the vendor never made the solution We didn’t need to put a lot of time into work properly. It didn’t support our creating basic CRM functionality; instead, business processes in Luxembourg,” we could focus on developing a great Wahlström says. interface and good connections to our back-end business systems. Using the Easy-to-Use Software Discovered familiar Microsoft .NET Framework meant SEB Wealth Management was just about to that our developers were ready to work close down the project, when Wahlström with the program with no learning curve.” and representatives from the Luxembourg office visited the company’s Helsinki office Using the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and learned about Microsoft Dynamics development system, the bank modified CRM. That office was using the program to the user interface, added new security and manage its CRM process. The staff really relationship models, and began linking liked Microsoft Dynamics CRM and said Microsoft Dynamics CRM with about 40 that it was easy to use and customize. other business systems. The development team uses Microsoft SQL Server 2008 data In spring 2008, the Luxembourg team used management software to store customer the last of its CRM-overhaul budget to data and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 license Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Within Reporting Services to create reports. The five months, the development team in application runs on the Windows Server Luxembourg managed to get a new CRM 2008 operating system. up and running in production with 50 users. The pilot was so successful that Wahlström 360-Degree Customer View convinced management to expand the SEB Wealth Management calls its new CRM application to the whole division. “It was system WM360, because it gives truly amazing, after years of spinning our investment managers and private bankers a wheels, to have a fully functioning CRM in 360-degree view of their customers. just five months,” Wahlström says. “I was Through WM360, advisors can access data very grateful for our Luxembourg office from dozens of LOB applications, taking the lead and making this global eliminating the need to switch between decision possible.” applications throughout the day. An advisor can get a quick one-page overview of a customer, or can dive deeply into the </p><p>36 numbers to analyze different aspects of the used Silverlight to create a high-level customer engagement. overview of each customer, showing their basic financial picture, sales hints, other SEB Advisors can also analyze an entire relationships, a relationship maps showing customer portfolio and gain insight such as: connections between the customer and How many hours do I spend with this other contacts in WM360, and other customer compared to the revenue information. produced? Which are my most profitable customers? Which customers have I not “When advisors want to look at customer engaged with in the last six months? assets and liabilities, instead of scrolling through a boring list of numbers, they can SEB Wealth Management uses the system ‘flip’ through charts and graphs, as you flip to automate workflows that help advisors through images on an iPhone,” Ponthan gather the right information and take the says. “Or, when you hold the cursor over a right actions with customers. For example, graph, a window showing deeper-level financial regulations require that advisors numbers pops up.” collect a great deal of customer data before The company plans to roll Microsoft they start the advisory process. Using Dynamics CRM out to all 1,300 employees, WM360, the company has devised a series taking time to educate all users and of prompts that help advisors ensure that migrate data from older systems into they are gathering the necessary data. WM360. </p><p>“Down the road, we will be able to give Benefits advisors very structured guidance for how With WM360, built using Microsoft to spend their day, if they want it,” Dynamics CRM and Microsoft development Wahlström says. “When they sit down to tools, SEB Wealth Management can get work, we can show them which customers 360-degree views of its customers, which they need to contact, to which customers helps it develop stronger customer they might suggest specific products, relationships and, ultimately, build higher whose birthday it is today, and so forth. revenues. With faster development, SEB With WM360, we can be more proactive.” Wealth Management can bring new tools into the hands of its banking staff in half An Interface with “Bling” the time it previously took. To create the “bling” that advisors craved, SEB Wealth Management used the Stronger Customer Relationships Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in to With WM360, SEB Wealth Management create a highly visual, dynamic interface for advisors have a complete view of WM360. “We looked at Amazon.com, customers in one place. With less time Microsoft.com, and other popular spent hunting down information, they have consumer sites to find out how they used more time to build relationships with technology to enhance the user customers. “With our new CRM, we can get experience,” Ponthan says. “Silverlight closer to our customers, because we have seemed to be the common denominator.” more information at our fingertips,” says For example, SEB Wealth Management </p><p>46 Christer Filis, Head of Financial Services at detailed specification documents, and it Private Banking at SEB Wealth was weeks before we saw the feature.” Management. “We can be faster in our replies and even anticipate their questions.” It was important to Wahlström to not spend time and money developing Adds Wahlström, “Customers must feel that standard CRM structure. “With Microsoft they are really taken care of. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we were able to focus on Dynamics CRM, we now have the data and adding functionality specific to our workflows at hand to provide this really business,” Wahlström says. “Microsoft attentive, proactive service.” Dynamics CRM provided the development features and workflow foundation required SEB Wealth Management also has a CRM to meet the complex workflow needs of the tool that it can share with its customers. advisory process.” “Using the Silverlight interface makes it easier to show our customers the The bank’s developers love the new system, relationship between their assets and too. “The developers love their work now,” liabilities and also the relationships Wahlström says. “They spend long hours between various investment vehicles,” with WM360, and they even think about Ponthan says. “The interface is very possible solutions and features in their free modern, very approachable. We’re even time. Microsoft Dynamics CRM was a good looking into the possibility of exposing choice for developer happiness.” parts of our solution directly to customers over the Internet. This would enable advisors and their customers to look at the Increased Business Agility same information, no matter where they The bank’s new CRM system helps it move are.” quickly when the market moves. “With the new CRM platform, we can more easily Radically Shortened Development Time adapt to changes in the market and serve Today, the Swedish CRM team in SEB more customer segments within Wealth Wealth Management is spending 75 Management,” Wahlström says. “We can percent of its IT budget on development add new functionality to support new areas and only 25 percent on maintenance, rather of the business or support our moves into than the other way around. The division can new countries. And we can easily meet new bring new functionality to the business a lot regulatory requirements. I see endless faster than it previously could. “Our Head possibilities for WM360. Our flexible CRM of IT Development and Business software will evolve with the business and Development in Luxembourg, Jacques de with our customers’ needs.” Rycke, and his team were able to create the solution in just five months, and have reduced the time-to-market for new functionality by 50 percent,” Wahlström says. “Today, I can give our developers an idea on a post-it note and have a demo within hours. Before, we had to write </p><p>56 Microsoft Dynamics Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what’s most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success. </p><p>For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to: www.microsoft.com/dynamics </p><p>66</p>