The pace of Digital Transformation in Financial Services has accelerated over the past few years, as the impact of consumer behaviour change caused by Covid and the ongoing competition from Fin Tech and newcomers into the marketplace continue to add pressure to established Financial Services businesses to adapt their business models to deliver the personalised products and services that many consumers crave.

Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) as an add-on to the standard Salesforce platform provides Fin Serv organisations with the ability to create highly personalised customer interaction and increase customer lifetime value.

The challenge for most organisations is knowing the best time to transition to Financial Services Cloud, and what to do with any customisations in your existing org that provide similar functions to FSC.

 

High Level Features of FSC

Salesforce Financial Services Cloud provides tailored capabilities for Financial Services organisations, most notably:

• A Financial Services Specific Data Model to provide important information about your clients current and future state, including Financial Accounts, Client Goals, Life Events, etc
• Financial Summaries for clients across their personal and professional relationships, to provide a 360-degree view
• Relationship Builder and mapping capabilities to understand your clients’ various touchpoints, and the value across these relationships
• Action Plans to standardise important processes such as client upsell and onboarding, including contact points and required documentation management
• Ready to use analytics with Tableau CRM to understand trends, identify focus areas and client value, to ensure you are targeting the right clients and providing appropriate servicing
• Referral Management including Needs Based Analysis and Scoring, to identify your most active and effective referrers
• Data Security with compliant data sharing to ensure your client data is visible only to authorised parties

Why is transitioning still a challenge with all these great features available?

Having all these great features at your fingertips, you may be asking yourself “why don’t I start using Financial Services Cloud right now?”

There are a few challenges that are identified in relation to the transition to FSC.

Firstly, For organisations who became Salesforce customers before the availability of FSC it was common to build some of the features now available FSC through customisation. For some organisations this might have involved creating a data model that is incompatible with FSC, and thus needs remediation.

It is important to get a full review of your current data model and 3^rd party systems integrations early in your planning stages for FSC.

Cost is also an important consideration, as Financial Services Cloud is accompanied by an additional licensing cost. It is important to complete a thorough cost/benefit analysis of the platform, to ensure that you are utilising a reasonable amount of features to outweigh the additional cost. This also needs to consider the time taken to understand & analyse these features, to present recommendations to stakeholders in relation to the conclusion of this analysis.

An often forgotten but   key aspect of any transition is change management, including user buy-in, training and comfortability. It is important for all users, whether currently using Salesforce or not, to be taken along for the journey to Financial Services Cloud. It is absolutely critical that the appropriate level of training is completed, so that users can understand the new features, and be aware of the most effective ways to utilise them.

How do I decide to transition to FSC?

Deciding to transition to Salesforce Financial Services Cloud is not a simple process, but this decision will provide long term benefits, such as

• Salesforce releases updates to its platform three times a year, meaning that any features do not remain stagnant, and that new features will be released, therefore provide increased business application
• The Financial Services Cloud platform contains a number of features that already meet key business requirements, meaning these features do not need to be enhanced or customised, resulting in an expedited time to value
• The majority of Financial Services Cloud features are able to be adjusted via configuration on the platform, and do not require development capabilities, which may be required for custom bespoke solutions built in house

What are the main questions to ask?

• Should I upgrade my existing Salesforce instance, or would it be better to start a new one and migrate everything over?
• How do I understand how my existing Salesforce data model and data transitions into the Financial Services Cloud model?
• How do I plan to train my users in these new features, and how do I rollout the changes?
• How can I be sure that my existing core functions can be used in Financial Services Cloud if they are still required moving forward?

How can Aware help you answer these questions?

The team at Aware Services can help you along your Financial Services Cloud journey. We are experts on both the Salesforce platform and Data & Analytics, so we also understand the value of accurate and secure data for Financial Services companies. We assist you on your journey following the below steps:

1. We will bring in our Financial Services Cloud experts to understand your business, speaking with your key stakeholders to about your processes and pain points
2. Once we understand your business, we will complete an independent capability analysis of FSC, and the benefits, it can bring to your company. This independent analysis will also look at areas of your business not currently using Salesforce, and how they might utilise Financial Services Cloud, therefore increasing your overall business value
3. We will work with you to outline a roadmap for transition and uplift, providing guidance on key aspects like whether to use your existing Salesforce instance or start with a new one
4. Implement the Financial Services Cloud capabilities, as agreed upon with all key stakeholders
5. Complete the rollout process, including Change Management and training for your user base, including a handover of the developer capabilities for your in-house administration team. This process can also include one of our Data & Analytics experts, who can help transform and migrate your data into the Financial Services Cloud model

 

Author – Javier Garcia