Integrated CRM Strategy For National Australia Bank Essay.

Internal and External Analysis of NAB

Question:

Discuss About The Integrated CRM Strategy National Australia?

National Australia Bank is one of the four largest and popular institutions in the financial area of Australia. It was founded in 1982 as the National Commercial Banking Corporation of the Australia Limited with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. It offers various services, to the clients, which consists of Business Banking, Consumer Banking, Wholesale Banking, Wealth management and insurance. In 2014, National Institutions in Australia was placed at 21^st rank in the list of the largest bank in the world as per the market capitalization and 41^st rank in the list of world’s largest bank as per the total assets. But in 2016, the bank falls from its 21^st position to the 49^th position when measured according to the total assets. Along with this, the bank has also been rated as AA by the Standard and Poors. It is serving to the people of Australia, New Zealand and Asia with manpower of around 35,063.

In 2014, National Australia Bank took the decision to add one effective feature to its working practice. This decision was regarding the implementation of Customer Relationship Management system within the workplace. NAB view is the part of core banking programs which combines the bank’s customer information, account information, etc. for improving relations with them. NAB view is the portal which collects the data from the Customer Hub and represents it to the bankers with the integrated tools. Thus, with the help of this, bankers of the NAB can view the entire relationship of the client on a single screen and in few clicks. This portal of the bank informs bankers about the information like whether the customers have traditional NAB personal or business account, their accounts in UBank, their transactions, personal information for contacting and many others. Use of NAB View increases the performance and working capabilities of the employees which results in more production (National Australia Bank. 2017).

The present file focuses on the Customer Relationship Management project for the National Australia Bank. This includes resolution of the current customer regarding problems, selection of the most suitable CRM vendor, its advantages, and infrastructure requirements. Along with this, the report will also pay attention to the training programs regarding the suggested CRM. 

To understand the current state of the National Australia Bank, both internal and external analysis is conducted.  In context to this, SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threats) is used for the internal analysis of the company. This is as follows:

Implementation of CRM Project

Strengthens:

• It s one of the largest banks in Australia with respect to sheer assets and size.
• The bank has a strong brand name in the market of Australia, Asia, and New Zealand.
• It offers different quality products and services to the customers. Due to high-quality products company has created a strong profile in the banking industry of UK and Australia.
• Use of NAB view for strengthening the customer relations (News : National Australia Bank Consolidates Customer Data on New CRM System. 2014)

Weaknesses:

• According to the recent NAB’s internal audit report, major issues are identified in the operational risk management practices.
• Technical issues to the online system which results to inconvenience and dissatisfy the clients

Opportunities:

• The collaboration of the NAB with Visa with respect to payment will lead to rolling out innovative products and solutions to the customers.
• After the formation of China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, NAB has huge opportunity to expand and develop its business in the lucrative Chinese market.

Threats:

• Competitors of the NAB are expanding their business and portfolios across the various nations of the world.
• Delayed returns from the technology investments can create an issue for the NAB working process.
• The volatility of the markets is enhancing the risks along with the factors such as Brexit and policy of the new U.S. administration.

From the above internal analysis, it is clear that NAB is popular and largest banking firm in the Australia. It is also using the appropriate system for developing and maintaining effective relations with the clients. But the company is not focusing on its operational management practices which can affect the different activities. It is necessary for the firm to have improved risk management practices for handling any hazard or incident while operating business processes. Technical issues on the online system are enhancing the dissatisfaction level of the clients. On the other hand, NAB can gain competitive advantages by enhancing the business in Chinese market.

Political: NAB creates a policy for banning the donation to the political parties in an image clean over. On the other hand, Brexit has created uncertainties in the political and business areas like free market access for the NAB which results to affect its working process (Boulding, Staelin, Ehret and Johnston, 2013). 

Economical: Subdued GDP due to the decreasing commodity prices in Australia and New Zealand is resulting in lowering income generation which is affecting growth and development of the bank. Along with this, the key market for NAB’s Group has the sub-trend economic growth since 2012.

Social: The Company is involved in the community investment programs for addressing the financial exclusion and social cohesion. Along with this, NAB also pays attention to the gender equality for offering equal opportunities to both male and female workers. In context to this, the bank has a female representative at the leadership and executive roles.

Technological: The bank is investing to the Data Republic and MLC On track program for preparing it for the data revolution. Along with this, the company is using technology for generating innovative products on Personal Banking Originating Platform.

Legal: In case of NAB’s Clydesdale bank, the government of Australia has imposed fine or penalty which can impact on the profitability and brand image of the firm. Along with this, mistakes are found in the risk management practices of the firm which can result in litigation in any event of fraud.

Environmental: NAB is the first Australian bank to achieve the recognition for carbon neutrality. Along with this, the bank has taken the initiative by generating science-based targets for decreasing the greenhouse gas (GHG) impact on the environment.

Thus, the above analysis represents that NAB has both negative and positive aspects. The firm needs to develop effective relations with the customers for increasing the positive outcomes.

Selection of CRM Vendor

Both the analysis represents that there is need of implementing effective CRM within the working environment. NAB View is efficient, but it needs to improve and upgrade as per the requirement of the current time. With the help of upgraded CRM, the company will able to handle its business processes, store its important and confidential information about the clients, inform customers about the various offers, new products or services, etc.

According to the above internal and external analysis, NAB needs to focus more on its customers for improving its decreasing market image. There is a gap between the business process and customer requirements. In context to this, users are facing technical issues in operating an online website of the bank which somewhere impacts negatively. To fulfill this gap, the bank needs to have an effective Customer Relationship Management system. NAB has its own portal for customer handling, but it is limited to certain functions and features. The company should have independent CRM system only for managing customer relations by knowing their demands and wants in an effective manner. Thus the major objective behind the formation of CRM plan for NAB is to increase customer satisfaction level (Tzeng, 2016).

• To decrease the waiting time of websites for increasing client satisfaction
• To create proper report of improved risk management practices
• To cut the time required for generating the report of CSR activities

With the help of appropriate CRM program, NAB will able to achieve the above-desired objectives which will result to enhance its brand image and business processes.

There is a large number of CRM solutions are available in the market. The vendors of the CRM Suite include SAP, IBM, Oracle, Siebel, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com. Selection of the appropriate CRM depends upon the ability and working area, business requirements, etc. of the firm. In context to this, NAB is a financial company which needs to have CRM for operating financial operations with respect to its customers. As per the working area of NAB, Oracle CRM is the best solution which will help in accomplishing the project objectives in an effective manner.

Oracle CRM is a customer relationship management which is offered by the Oracle Corporation. CRM On Demand is the best suitable CRM solution for the bank. It is accessible via internet and uses the software called Software as a Service (SaaS). This system will provide various features to the NAB which are: Social CRM, Quote and order capture, partner relationship management, Business Intelligence applications, Price management, customer data integration and Self-service and e-Billing (Padilla-Meléndez and Garrido-Moreno, 2014).

Oracle’s CRM On Demand provides broadest and deepest capabilities to the organizations for improving and enhancing their loyalty, service quality and marketing. Along with this, it is a cost effective system as it does not have any hardware requirement. With the help of this CRM solution, NAB will able to:

• Become Smarter with the help of contextual intelligence, real-time and historical analytics and adaptive business planning features of the Oracle On-demand CRM
• Become more productive by using integrated sales and marketing in the cloud, mobile integration and specific solutions regarding the banking industry.
• Get the best value by lowering the total cost of ownership, using high-grade security and selecting the multi-tenancy or single-tenancy options (Hollensen, 2015).

Infrastructure Requirements

The Oracle CRM On Demand Financial Service Edition will help NAB to capture the insurance producer mindshare and increase the channel revenue. Less customization, faster time to value and increased user adoption will lead to enhancing the sales, marketing, customer service and partner management of the bank. Other benefits which NAB will get by implementing Oracle CRM On Demand Financial Service Edition are as follows:

• Enabling channel managers to pay emphasis to the high-value activities for enhancing the performance of the channel.
• Comparison of historical trends with the help of fast access to the hosted data warehouse for improving the current strategies and understanding the actual situation of the company.
• Display of embedded analytics based on the types of users.
• Provide a view business with the help of unified agent desktop with effective sales productivity tools.
• Increase in productivity and retention by maintaining the information properly and keeping a record of all sales and profit margin.
• Effective single view of the customers which enable faster and higher quality of need analysis.
• Streamline sales process for improving the effectiveness and collaboration
• Pipeline and activity trending for comprehensive and timely reporting
• Use of systematic and pro-active approach to managing and maintaining the client books of business along with client relationship which will lead to generating opportunities (Oracle CRM On Demand Wealth Management. 2017).
• Maximization in account wallet-share along with increment in new opportunity close rates.

The system requirements which will be needed by NAB for implementing the Oracle CRM On Demand are as follows:

• Mozilla Firefox with most recent stable version
• Google Chrome 32 and 64-bit version
• Apple Safari version 8.0.x,9.x for OS X.   
• Microsoft Edge

• Microsoft Windows 7
• Microsoft Windows 8.1
• Microsoft Windows 10

The infrastructure which will need to support Oracle CRM On-demand is SaaS. This infrastructure will offer DBMS software, human resource management, enterprise resource planning, accounting, CAD software and many other. Combination of Oracle CRM and SaaS will provide following facilities to the NAB

• It allows clients to subscribe and use application software in the cloud.
• Uninterrupted CRM On-demand service to the customers by offering high security and safety measures on the cloud (What Is a Software-as-a-Service Cloud Suite?. 2017.).
• Employees of the firm can access the data from anywhere in the world
• NAB will have to pay only for those services it is using.
• It will provide bank an ability to customize their applications as per the business infrastructure without affecting the common infrastructure.
• Improved access to the data from any networked device.

The staff of the NAB is quite unaware about the Oracle CRM On Demand software. Employees are handling business processes manually which can make them resist the implemented change. For encouraging workers to use CRM model, NAB will have to conduct training sessions. This will help in developing and enhancing the skills and knowledge of the employees for using CRM effectively. It will also reduce the fear of workers to lose their reputation, job position, economic status, etc. due to the implementation of new system. Along with this, the bank will have to tell the importance of CRM in business and in career growth of the workers. This information will help in changing mindset of the staff members. NAB will have to use some examples for better understanding and results.

In the beginning, employees of the NAB will resist the change but proper information and training will make them change their thinking, and at the end, they will start using CRM effectively. In context to this, the bank will have to provide both theoretical and practical training to the workers along with information about the safety and security measures to be considered while managing the information on the cloud (Boulding, Staelin, Ehret and Johnston, 2013).

The timeline for implementation of the CRM Software within the workplace of NAB is as follows:

The above timeline can be affected by various problems such as the sudden need of extra resources, hardware failure, attack of virus or malware, etc. Along with this, improper participation of the team members, a large amount of data to convert and transfer, insufficient resources, etc. can also affect the decided timeline for implementation of the CRM project into the workplace of the NAB (Mithas, Krishnan, and Fornell, 2013).

While implementing the CRM On Demand system within the workplace, NAB will have to establish a budget. This will inform about the overall costing of the project. The budget for the respected CRM model is as follows:

Conclusion

It is concluded from the above study; National Australia Bank can improve its functioning by implementing Oracle CRM On Demand system. This system will enhance the customer relationship along with sales and profitability of the firm.

References

Boulding, W., Staelin, R., Ehret, M., and Johnston, W.J., 2013, May. A customer relationship management roadmap: What is known, potential pitfalls, and where to go. American Marketing Association.

Hollensen, S., 2015. Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.

Padilla-Meléndez, A. and Garrido-Moreno, A., 2014. Customer relationship management in hotels: examining critical success factors. Current Issues in Tourism, 17(5), pp.387-396.

Tzeng, J.Y., 2016. A Study of Customer Relationship Management.

Mithas, S., Krishnan, M.S. and Fornell, C., 2013, May. Why do customer relationship management applications affect customer satisfaction?. American Marketing Association.

National Australia Bank. 2017. [Online]. Available Through: < https://www.nab.com.au/>. [Accessed on 10^th October 2017]

News : National Australia Bank Consolidates Customer Data on New CRM System. 2014. [Online]. Available Through: < https://www.contactcenterworld.com/view/contact-center-news/national-australia-bank-consolidates-customer-data-on-new-crm-system.aspx>. [Accessed on 10^th October 2017]

Oracle CRM On Demand Wealth Management. 2017. [Online]. Available Through: < https://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/crmondemand/industry-solutions/wealth-management/crm-ondemand-wealth-management-331371.html>. [Accessed on 10^th October 2017]

What Is a Software-as-a-Service Cloud Suite?. 2017. [Online]. Available Through: < https://www.oracle.com/cloud/applications.html>. [Accessed on 10^th October 2017]