Traded on the Italian Stock Exchange since 2000, Banca CR Firenze offers its customers a range of personalised banking, financial, insurance, and consumer credit solutions in alliance with four other banks that do business as Findomestic Banca.

Setting the strategy
As part of a reorganisation focused on improving customer service, Banca CR Firenze decided to invest in new customer relationship management (CRM) technology to better serve its customers.

In the new structure, the bank defined three new segments: Retail (customers and small businesses with assets under €500,000), Private Banking (customers with more than €500,000 in assets), and Corporate (companies with sales greater than €2.5 million).

According to Stefano Puccioni, Planning and Commercial Manager, Banca CR Firenze S.p.A., about 30,000 large customers were transferred to 15 new Private Banking branches and 15 new Business Banking branches in the reorganisation.

The traditional retail branches with 570,000 customers would need to continue operating profitably, but would have to meet their operating budget without the benefit of their larger customers.

“This new retail business requirement was the perfect opportunity for Banca CR Firenze to optimise its CRM capabilities with a new solid and structured solution,” he explains.

To meet this need for enhanced CRM, Banca CR Firenze created a new Regional Marketing Network System called SMART (Sistema di Marketing Rete Territoriale). Its goal was to better manage campaigns and commercial events.

The SMART initiative was designed to match a leading CRM solution for marketing and sales with the bank’s IT services department and Accenture, the bank’s consulting services provider.

Getting business specific
Banca CR Firenze chose Infor CRM Epiphany Sales and Infor CRM Epiphany Marketing for the SMART initiative because of the advanced functionality in the Infor CRM solutions.

“The Infor solution closely matched Accenture’s reference model, which has three segments within the Retail market,” he explains. “It was necessary to have a solution that would satisfy these three segments (family, personal, and business), while being uniform at the same time.”

The heart of the Infor-based SMART project is the Monitor, Banca CR Firenze’s virtual desktop for managers. The Monitor displays all commercial indicators regarding the customer and visible portfolios (campaigns/event/alerts), even allowing appointments to be set. All possible sales opportunities are displayed, including contact priorities.

Unlike the previous CRM system, the new Infor solution provided capabilities for Purchase Intention Alerts that directly involve a specific campaign.

This functionality actively contributes to the success of a commercial campaign, directing the potential customer that triggered the alarm to the manager.

Puccioni says Infor’s capabilities in this area made it possible for Banca CR Firenze to optimise all activity, especially that of branch consultants who often are young and inexperienced.

Seeing results
To meet internal deadlines, the planning and implementation phases needed to be completed extremely quickly. Banca CR Firenze evaluated the Sales and Marketing solutions and decided to go ahead with the implementation in only a week. The company started with three pilot projects at branches before the formal rollout began. From testing to final delivery, the entire project was completed within 12 months.

The combination of Sales and Marketing has helped Banca CR Firenze optimise its CRM system, allowing its full marketing and commercial potential to reach its customer base. “The entire Infor system was customised, matching our need to target specific market segments,” Puccioni says. “While six to eight campaigns were launched annually in the past, we are now launching 250 to 300 highly targeted campaigns with the Infor CRM solution.”

One key strength of the new Infor CRM solution is improved communications within Banca CR Firenze. “Commercial Planning Managers, Segment Managers, Branch Directors, and Area Directors all have a planning, monitoring, and control function over the process,” Puccioni says.

The solution also has improved Banca CR Firenze’s cross selling and customer retention rates. “Our bank has always been known for its strong local presence (with 25 percent market share),” he says. “Performance indicators have always been good, but since the Infor-based SMART initiative was put in place, they have improved considerably.

Being open to an enterprising future
The prospects are good that Sales and Marketing will provide Banca CR Firenze with substantial business value over the long term. Based on an independent market analysis, Banca CR Firenze’s cross selling rate has increased from 4.25 percent to 4.46 percent.

“With the Infor CRM solution, our customer loss rate also has improved from an average of 7 percent down to 6 percent,” he says. “This means 10,000 more customers per year are being retained.”

For more information

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About Infor
Infor delivers business-specific software to enterprising organisations. With experience built in, Infor’s solutions enable businesses of all sizes to be more enterprising and adapt to the rapid changes of a global marketplace. With more than 70,000 customers, Infor is changing what businesses expect from an enterprise software provider. For additional information, visit www.infor.com.

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