Financial service enterprises operate in a highly challenged market where consolidation, increasing regulation and economic realities are negatively impacting their ability to achieve key objectives. This has created a culture where there is a constant need to find more predictable revenue streams and cost efficiency gains.
Regulatory bodies such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the various international bodies’ present challenges to financial service organizations to deliver fair and open products and services, while providing answers, and direction to the various customers interacting with their organizations. In order to address these challenges knowledge management is needed to streamline processes and deliver content at the right time, in the right way and in the right context to meet the demand of customers.
In meeting the demand for customers, it is increasingly important for financial services organizations to address customer needs. KM through the implementation of processes and technology (including Information Architecture – see Chapter 4) will ensure customer information is shared with the right people at the right time across the organization. By utilizing a customer-focused, integrated knowledge management system, all employees interacting with a customer will have up to date knowledge of that customer’s breadth of relationship and experience with the organization. This will assist the organization with cross selling, up selling and reporting on the effectiveness of any new customer initiatives.
In addition the staff must start (if they are not already doing so) working together using knowledge as a focal point to service the customer. With this emphasis, as more financial products and services become available through mobile devices the ability for those financial companies to respond rapidly to customer demands with the right answers, at the right time, and in the right context will be met.
Empowering Employees to Satisfy Customers
The objective of knowledge management is to capture knowledge of different stakeholders of the organization and make it explicitly available to all employees. Sharing of knowledge will enable improved and quicker decision making. Employees empowered with improved decision making will increase the ability to address customer needs and create more satisfied customers. Empowering your employees through knowledge management will assist your organization in addressing competition driven by reduced barriers to switch companies, the proliferation of products and product commoditization, mergers and acquisitions and the ever changing product portfolios, and shifts in customer behaviors.
Financial services organizations (including banks) value of Knowledge Management as a business practice. From managing intellectual capital, to the vast array of customer data, one of the goals of KM is to enhance customer satisfaction and increase revenue.
Whether the organization is regional or global, a key aspect of your business and specifically your KM strategy must be to treat each client as an individual with individual needs. By implementing a comprehensive KM program and associated processes and systems a determination as to which customers are most likely to buy which products, who is at risk of leaving, which unprofitable clients are most likely to be profitable, and who is most likely to respond to which marketing campaigns based on their demographics, can start to be addressed and the organization will have a sustainable model for success!
Knowledge management practices, policies, procedures and applications all aimed at delivering financial services that enable people to build financial stability should be the focus of all financial services organizations. This chapter focuses on the use of Knowledge Management (KM) within the financial industry and will present how KM is being leveraged to increase sales through customer satisfaction, capturing and cataloging knowledge for a personal interaction, the advantage of creating and leveraging communities for improved employee performance and extending your knowledge to customers to provide self-service provides a competitive edge.
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