Does Your System Measure Up? What Asset Management Firms Need in CRM Software

Sales targeting. Trade resolution. Getting the data you need to make the right decisions. With very few exceptions, the challenges faced by asset management firms—on both the institutional and wholesale sides—are generally consistent. But the technology designed to support your efforts still hasn’t gotten it quite right.

Whether you use a “horizontal” CRM solution like Salesforce or a point solution like SalesPage, you aren’t operating at peak efficiency. Traditional systems and the traditional approaches they support don’t take the big picture into account: It’s not about CRM; it’s about how you do business.

For asset management firms to break down these roadblocks, the conversation needs to be expanded not only to include what CRM can do (that goes far beyond what most realize), but also into technologies like predictive analytics and machine learning, as well as other tools and techniques that promote increased engagement at all levels.

Asset managers are having to do more with less

With competition nipping at your heels, you need to be laser-focused—spending your time on your most profitable relationships. CRM systems should support you in these efforts, but more often than not, they fall short. Instead of helping you think strategically, they help you enter leads and move them along the pipeline…not much more.

Is it time to throw out your CRM and replace it with another one? Perhaps, but let’s pause for a moment. What if the problem isn’t with the CRM system? What if the problem is that you’re focusing only on CRM, rather than the role it plays in your business processes?

If you’re in institutional sales, you are tasked with having a handle on relationships. You are constantly reviewing requests for information, RFPs, the traders you might be involved with, and an ever-growing number of news and activity feeds. You’re also looking at all of the interactions within the organization around making offers and institutional sales opportunities. You’re tracking relationships.

Is your CRM system able to track internal interactions—for example, the interactions between a sales person and an analyst? Most CRM systems fail in this area. It is critical to understand who knows who, who is meeting and why, how follow-up is being handled…and all the details around these relationships and activities. Otherwise, you don’t know the whole story, which can be costly to your business.

The right CRM system provides you with the ability to easily view how your institutional salespeople are interacting with your consultant relationships, as well as what those interactions and relationships are generating. Today’s CRM systems let you accomplish this from an activity tracking and relationship metric perspective rather than forcing you to enter information multiple times and click through screen after screen to get the information you’re looking for.

You simply go about your business while your CRM monitors your behavior, watching your emails, phone calls, and meetings—sifting through all this information to uncover opportunities as well as possible areas of concern. Your CRM should be able to say, “Hey, I’ve noticed that Bob, an institutional salesperson, hasn’t been talking much lately to Karen, a consultant…and Karen hasn’t been forwarding any deals to Bob. Maybe that’s the relationship we need to work on.” (By the way, this is machine learning in action, which we’ll discuss further in Part 2 of this blog series.)

Looking at CRM as a platform rather than an application—and tallying up the benefits of a CRM system that connects critical systems and uses machine learning to increase the productivity of your team—where does your CRM stand? Are you ready for a sales and service reboot? Contact the Financial Services experts at HSO to learn more about what Microsoft Dynamics 365 can do for your firm.