Guardian Capital Advisors:
Faster and Deeper Customer Service
Guardian Capital Advisors, an Ontario-based specialist in discretionary private client investment management, had been using Janna for customer relationship management (CRM) until Siebel acquired the company and announced it would terminate support for the Janna application. Working with Salentica Systems, GCA decided to deploy Microsoft Business Solutions CRM.
Managing $1.5 billion for just 300 clients, GCA places a high priority on customer relationships. It wanted a CRM tool that functioned similarly to Janna but offered better system integration, required minimal training, and allowed staff to customize reports and views of CRM data. The company also wanted the tool to track data on potential clients who completed questionnaires at its Web portal. Salentica Systems knew that a Microsoft CRM-based tool could meet GCA's goals and complement its existing Microsoft-based infrastructure – the company used Microsoft SQL Server and was moving from Lotus Notes to Microsoft Exchange Server. Salentica also added its own custom workflow management application, iParties, to the solution it proposed to the money manager.
“The solution Salentica presented allowed us to leverage our existing Microsoft-based infrastructure to implement a more robust CRM tool at a price comparable to our Janna solution,” said Darryl Workman, vice-president of administration at GCA.
The implementation process took only four months.
With Microsoft’s CRM application, GCA staff members have deeper customer information at hand and can offer improved service without adding personnel.
“With a couple of mouse clicks, we can have client information right in front of us,” said Workman. “That allows us to talk intelligently with clients. It reassures them that their investments are our top concern.”
Web address:
www.gcaweb.com
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=16286
Allianz Global Investors:
Simplifying Internal Collaboration
At Allianz Global Investors, which has operations in 70 countries and more than $1.2 trillion under management, the challenge for US subsidiaries was to improve internal communication, accelerate service delivery and develop a more cohesive corporate identity. Many of AGI’s previously autonomous companies were adjusting their operations to comply with recent reorganizations and mergers.
In just six weeks an internal development team delivered a solution – an enterprise portal based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and other Microsoft software. This has led to improvements in key business processes, including accounting and IT project administration. The portal also enables more efficient use of IT resources, higher information security, and improved corporate branding across the Allianz Global Investors family of companies.
“Our main problem was internal communication,” said Graham Lambert, senior vice president of information systems for the company. “As the different subsidiaries came together into one organization, we did not have a way to effectively communicate policies, procedures, or announcements. We did not even have a centralized corporate directory.”
The company also needed more effective teamwork and collaboration among corporate service providers and their internal clients. E-mail and paper, the primary document management systems, were inefficient. SharePoint Portal Server was chosen for its extensive integration with the Microsoft Office System and other desktop applications.
Web address:
www.allianzglobalinvestors.com
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=16927
Manulife Financial:
Keeping Retirees Up to Date
Manulife Financial provides services for prospective retirees through its Canadian Pension Operations. To reduce expenses, Manulife moved this pension work to a Microsoft operating system and database, with an expected savings of $3.3 million over a five-year period with significantly increased operational efficiency.
Canadian Pension Operations runs a database supporting the 4,000 plan administrators and 300,000 members through the Money Product System which enables plan administrators to perform administrative tasks such as reviewing policy details. It also allows members to view pertinent information, including rates of return and account balances.
Following a successful pilot, Manulife decided to implement a solution consisting of three Intel servers running the Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server operating system and Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition. A small team of technical personnel, consisting of two database administrators and three programmers, managed the entire implementation and migration over a six-month period. The result has been significant performance gains, faster response times from SQL Server, and improved productivity of database administrators.
Web address:
www.manulife.ca
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=16608
Windward Investment Management:
Streamlining Portfolio Updates
Windward Investment Management provides investment strategies to high-wealth individuals, trust and pension funds, and endowments by applying the firm's sophisticated investment model to client portfolios.
Initially the company relied on manual data entry for updating portfolios, but this became cumbersome as the company's client base grew. Windward worked with Greystone Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, to implement a new portfolio management system that uses Web services to streamline the transmission of data between Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database, and client data contained in an external source.
Windward’s founders and employees developed the company’s model over 25 years, starting with investment research at MIT and Wharton business schools.
Using the model to update client portfolios can be a very labor-intensive process, said Steve Cucchiaro, Windward’s president and founder. "When we decide to rebalance client portfolios, we have to do so across all portfolios to ensure that all assets under our management conform to the strategy. When the company was smaller, this was not a difficult challenge when using conventional methods.”
Windward wanted to implement a solution that could automate much of the process of taking information from databases and spreadsheets, applying that information to its investment model, and making changes across its growing client assets.
Following an in-depth review of Windward's requirements, Greystone recommended an automated data-retrieval and analysis solution that could streamline the process of portfolio reviews. The application downloads data from a third-party investment company, routes the information into a Windward database, and uses a Web service to help deliver the information to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. From there, Windward employees can apply the appropriate rules and formulas within the spreadsheets, then save changes back to the database.
The number of work hours required to update and balance all of Windward's client portfolios has dropped from an average of 220 to about 64, freeing up employee time for portfolio analysis, working directly with current clients, and seeking new business. The solution was deployed in about five weeks and required only minimal training.
“A big investment house could have done this with an expensive, specialized solution," said Bob Shear, chief executive officer at Greystone, “but we were able to accomplish the same thing at a fraction of the cost.”
Web address:
www.windwardinv.com
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/CaseStudy.asp?CaseStudyID=15251