How one of the first CRM initiatives in the UK Investment Management sector has helped Allianz Dresdner Asset Management to gain greater visibility of both its Institutional and Retail clients’ activity leading to increased sales performance, highly targeted communications and improved customer service.

1. Allianz Dresdner
How one of the first CRM initiatives in the UK Investment Management sector has helped Allianz Dresdner Asset
Management to gain greater visibility of both its Institutional and Retail clients’ activity leading to increased sales
performance, highly targeted communications and improved customer service.
Company Overview Whilst most Asset Management firms manage all their
Allianz Dresdner Asset Management (UK) Ltd is an asset investments in-house regardless of the type of fund, at Allianz
management company with £5 billion under management Dresdner funds are managed using the most appropriate
offering a broad range of products for both institutional and company within the Allianz Group.
retail clients and their advisers.
Summary
The company is a member of Allianz Group, one of the world’s Recognising the rapid changes affecting the financial services
largest asset management groups employing more than 750 sector caused Allianz Dresdner Asset Management to take a
investment professionals in 27 locations across Europe, Asia and long hard look at how they were serving the needs of their
the US. It has Euro 979 billion of assets under management clients – both institutional and retail. Today, using Pivotal
(31/03/03). solutions, the company has far greater visibility of its individual
client profiles and is in a stronger position to more accurately
For institutional clients, Allianz Dresdner Asset Management align its investment products to its clients’ needs. As a result,
delivers investment products including active equity. Drawing Allianz Dresdner Asset Management has achieved significant
upon its global resources and presence in major centres around business efficiencies and is now in a position to offer a more
the world, the company is ideally positioned to service the complete and highly personalised service to both its institutional
complex needs of institutional investors. and retail clients.
“We recognised the value that a highly responsive CRM Whilst the Institutional and Retail sides of the business continue
system could bring to our business, enabling us to open up to operate as distinct client groups, business efficiencies –
the lines of communication and interaction between, what particularly in the areas of sales and marketing - and increased
were previously, distinct business information silos. productivity have been gained by using the Pivotal system to
The Pivotal system has given us complete visibility of client identify opportunities to cross-market and cross-sell. In many
activity and sales performance which has undoubtedly led instances, the higher end of the retail marketplace has become
to increased sales productivity.” quasi-institutional with sales people sharing accounts across the
Giles Hardy, Head of e-Business, Allianz Dresdner Asset Management
distinct groups.
For retail clients and IFAs (Independent Financial Advisors), In short, Pivotal has enabled Allianz Dresdner Asset
Allianz Dresdner Asset Management brings together a distinctive Management to gain greater visibility into its overall client base
network of investment platforms. Each platform has its own and, as a result, has enabled the company to realise tangible
specialised area of expertise and dedicated resources. returns on its investment in the customer management system.

2. The Business Decision sales and marketing point of view, but also from a financial and
In early 2001, Allianz Dresdner Asset Management made the operational perspective.
strategic decision to invest in a CRM system as their attention had
been brought to the fact that the company’s existing contact Having established the exacting business criteria for the new
management system could no longer support the demands of the system, the search was on to identify a suitable solution.
business or the company’s IT infrastructure.
The Decision to ‘Go Pivotal’
Underlying business drivers affecting this decision related to the Having drawn up an in-depth business requirements document,
rapid changes affecting the financial services sector. Increasingly Allianz Dresdner Asset Management commenced the search for a
organisations were shifting their emphasis, from a focus on suitable solution. The process commenced with comprehensive
product to a focus on clients. Factors such as increased desk-based research covering a broad range of potential vendors
competition, regulation and the ability to offer a broader range from around the world totalling in excess of 50 companies. At the
of products to an increasingly diverse and demanding client end of this first phase, the selection was narrowed down to 7
portfolio forced the more astute organisations to seriously vendors, each of which were invited to tender for the project.
consider their use of technology. In particular, their use of
technology as a tool to more effectively and proactively manage Upon completion of the ITT process, 3 vendors including Pivotal
customer relationships. Corporation were selected for further consideration. An
exhaustive round of meetings involving selected Allianz Dresdner
Focusing initially on the retail side of the business, with a heavy Asset Management Business Managers, future end-users of the
emphasis on tracking and monitoring results from marketing new system, and IT professionals was conducted with each
programmes in a live environment and how leads were managed vendor. This series of meetings included on-site product
through the sales cycle, a full business requirements summary demonstrations, submission of tender documents, detailed project
was drawn up by a carefully selected project team. timelines, budgets and risk analysis. In order to mitigate the
potential risks associated with implementing such a vital new
For Allianz Dresdner Asset Management, the requirement to business system, an extensive questionnaire was designed to
implement a CRM system was also underpinned by their need to enable the company to understand potential issues arising from
more efficiently address the needs of a highly competitive market. the implementation. Each vendor was then scored against a
The ability to conduct in-depth profiling and market intelligence rating system in order to give Allianz Dresdner Asset Management
using external data feeds was paramount for the implementation valuable quantitative results on which to base the final decision.
of the new system to be successful. Furthermore, the company
needed a complete view of its target market, not only from a Pivotal technology was selected for the following reasons:
• Flexibility of the system to meet the company’s
Key Business Requirements
business needs.
• Single view, consolidated customer management
• Ability to implement in a phased approach.
system for retail & institutional clients.
• Ability to customise and add new business modules.
• Sales performance tracking & analysis.
• Ease-of-use & acceptance by end-users.
• Ability to conduct highly targeted, personalised
• Low maintenance solution.
marketing campaigns.
• Analysis of business metrics relating to marketing
As Giles Hardy comments, “It would have been an easy option to
campaigns; response rates, fufilment lead times &
go down the ‘off-the-shelf’ or packaged application route, but this
costs, conversion rates, movement through sales cycle,
would not have served the needs of our business well in the long
customer retention rates.
term. By working closely with the Pivotal team in the UK we have
• Adherence to regulatory standards.
been able to take a phased approach to the development and
• Customisable solution adaptable to business needs
implementation of a comprehensive CRM solution which we
rather than prescriptive solution.
expect to continue to serve our needs across both sides of our
• Scalable and capable of evolving in line with changing
business.”
needs of business.

3. Phased Development & Implementation Leads to “The investment management business is very specific,
Faster ROI detailed and highly complex. Due to the flexibility and
A project team made up of key stakeholders was formed to customisation capabilities of Pivotal technology, we have
commence the development of the system. Considerable time been able to adapt the system to meet these needs. In its
and attention was given to gaining an understanding of exact own right, this demonstrates the flexibility that is inherent
business needs and processes required by the users of the system. in the Pivotal system.”
In-depth interviews were conducted with key members of staff to Giles Hardy, Head of e-Business, Allianz Dresdner Asset Management
determine how the system could support them in their day-to-day
business. It was vital for the Pivotal solution to reflect Allianz Conclusion
Dresdner Asset Management’s specialist financial business As one of the first adopters of a comprehensive CRM system in
processes and workflows rather than for the company to adopt the UK investment management industry, Allianz Dresdner Asset
prescriptive business processes defined by the system itself. Management has gained a tighter hold over its business and
reaped tangible business benefits as a result. By using Pivotal to
In this area, Pivotal technology proved to be highly flexible and more tightly integrate the company’s marketing and sales
customisable. Working alongside the company’s internal functions, Allianz Dresdner Asset Management has been able to
development team, Pivotal Professional Services transferred the create and sustain long-term, valuable and personal customer
necessary knowledge and skill required to adapt the system to relationships.
meet the specific needs of the business.
As Giles Hardy comments, “We have definitely benefited from the
Upon completion of the scoping study, system development new system. It has given us a far stronger ability to accurately
commenced. The new system was required to operate in a Microsoft track, monitor and manage sales and marketing activities. Not
environment using Windows 2000 Servers and SQL Server back- only does it give us a big picture view, but it also enables us to
end. Development was conducted in 2 phases with primary focus drill down into specifics and has, without doubt, contributed to our
on the needs of the retail business sales and marketing teams overall sales performance.”
followed by the institutional sales and marketing requirements.
Particular emphasis was placed on the integration of the system
with a number of 3rd party systems and data feeds and, in this
respect, it was important to plan the integration schema in detail.
By building an explicit integration module, using various
technology and Pivotal components, the development team was
able to significantly reduce the time taken to process high
volume, daily data feeds.
Key Business Capabilities
• Client segmentation, analysis & tracking.
User Adoption & Rollout
• Ability to quickly identify cross-selling opportunities.
One of the fundamental reasons for the successful adoption of the
• Accurate sales forecasting & sales pipeline visibility.
new system was the fact that future end-users were involved from
• Highly responsive lead fulfilment.
the onset; at the point of vendor selection. At rollout, all users
• Complete visibility of a client’s investment portfolio
were provided with general training on how to use the system. This
across multiple products enabling single rather than
was then followed up by 1-on-1 training to demonstrate the more
multiple communications.
in-depth features and functionality of the system according to
• Accurate targeting and market segmentation for the
specific users’ needs.
execution of marketing campaigns.
• Reduced time-to-market for new product
Today, the users of the Pivotal system span marketing, sales and
introductions.
fund managers, with new developments planned to increase the
user base as the system extends in support of the institutional side
of the business.

4. About Pivotal Corporation
For organisations around the world that need to integrate their More than 1,500 organisations around the world across a
marketing, sales and service functions for more effective broad range of industry sectors have chosen Pivotal solutions
customer management, Pivotal provides a suite of business as their business application platform of choice.
applications that increase operational efficiencies, reduce cost
and enhance customer service. Pivotal customers include B&Q, CIBC, Centex Homes, Allianz
Dresdner Asset Management, FPDSavills, HarperCollins
Pivotal creates value for its customers by enabling them to Publishers, Hitachi Telecom Inc., Micro Focus, Macrovision,
more effectively collaborate and share knowledge throughout NextiraOne, Pharmacia Corporation, Premera Blue Cross,
the organisation by providing an open, flexible, customisable Regus, Royal Bank of Canada, Sharp Electronics Corporation,
business application platform. Using Pivotal solutions, Southern Company, and Vivendi.
organisations are able to more effectively market to, sell to and
service the needs of their prospects, customers, partners and
suppliers.
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