Time, ease of operations and costs influence business in today's world, and the financial services industry is no exception. Customers in the financial services industry are mature, savvy and technologically better equipped than customers of most other industries. Whether it is the baby boomers, Gen X or Gen Y, the proliferation of the Internet has increased the level of technological awareness and customer expectations. Financial services companies are now embracing multichannel integration (MCI) as a key initiative to acquire, retain and service their customers. 

1. Transformer
Multi-Channel Integration
Gomathy Subramanian
Principal - Banking Solutions
About the author:
Gomathy has over 25 years of business and IT experience in Consulting,
Financial services, Airlines and retail industries gained in Australia, Hong
Kong, US and India. She has led large initiatives in Strategic Planning, Core
Banking, CRM, Bill presentment and payment, Infrastructure, Independent
testing and Outsourcing.

2. Introduction o Get the same and consistent level of service across all channels
Time, ease of operations and costs influence business in today's o Purchase any product through any channel.
world, and the financial services industry is no exception. Customers
2. Competition
in the financial services industry are mature, savvy and technologically
better equipped than customers of most other industries. Whether it is Intense competition has made it imperative for organizations to focus
the baby boomers, Gen X or Gen Y, the proliferation of the Internet has on being market differentiators by offering MCI as a further step in
increased the level of technological awareness and customer customer satisfaction. An increasing number of players have entered
expectations. Financial services companies are now embracing multi- this space by offering products and servicing them effectively through
channel integration (MCI) as a key initiative to acquire, retain and newer channels such as mobile phones (SMS), Internet and call
service their customers. centers.
MCI refers to the simultaneous and consistent delivery of information, 3. Cost optimization
products and services by an organization on all or some of its With systems becoming more complex, the costs of developing and
channels, such that customers derive a seamless experience when maintaining multiple delivery systems out of siloed applications
they switch channels during their purchase and service activities. The become prohibitive. Companies are focusing their energies on
term channel refers to the various transacting, marketing, servicing optimizing such costs.
and communication media used to interact with customers. These
4. Third party channel products integration:
include branches, call centers, secured emails, mobile devices,
internet, ATMs, Kiosks and paper-based media like product As organizations move towards 'buying' off-the-shelf software rather
brochures. than developing systems themselves based on speed, cost and other
considerations, the need to seamlessly integrate such acquired
Some scenario examples: software with back-office systems is increasing. This is another major
1. A customer wishing to buy a product obtains product information driver towards building a multi-channel integrated platform.
on the web, starts with the application over the web, walks up to
5. Technology advances
the branch or a Kiosk to continue the process, provides required
documentation, and obtains approval status on his mobile phone. The recent technological advances in connectivity, bandwidth,
communications, security have simplified channel integration. Eg.
2. A customer calls into the call centre for a financial transaction,
Video communications can now be embedded in channel
when completed is offered a credit card limit increase which he is
communications through use of improved compression technology,
delighted to accept. An outbound call is saved here.
firewall mechanisms, etc. whether it is with customers, partners or
3. A customer updates his contact details at the branch and the employees.
information is immediately available on other channels.
What is involved?
Some of these resemble a CRM strategy; however a CRM is more
A transformation in the technology landscape would result in the
focused on managing relationships, while MCI is a wider concept
following changes:
managing sales and services in a consistent manner. MCI is a value-
add to CRM. 1. Products: Organizations would be able to offer products across
channels. The product information will be consolidated, maintained
In Business terms, MCI focuses on the totality of customer experience
and delivered from a common store.
and operator experience. In Technology terms, its thrust is on a
framework-driven integration of products, services and information 2. Services: Companies would be able to service customer requests
both at the front-end and the back-end to varying degrees, bringing in through multiple channels, would be able to pick up the interaction
technological agility, reducing technology clutter and costs. from one channel and carry it through another without duplication of
effort or customer inconvenience. The hand-offs will be seamless to
What are some of the Business drivers? the customer.
1. Customer knowledge and expectations:
3. Master data management: All data related to products,
With improved awareness, customer expectations are also increasing. customers and other information will be aggregated, stored and
Customers want to be in a position to accessed from a single repository. This means that the information
o Choose the channel to transact with a bank from disparate applications will need to be deduped, updated and
maintained in a central database. A common reference data store
o Obtain information from any channel (eg. Product details, terms
needs to be maintained to access this data.
and conditions, calculators)

3. 4. Content management: All content and data enrichment delivered What are the challenges?
to sales and servicing will be stored and managed from a common
1. Technology risks: The technology framework would involve
platform. Content will include canned audio or video clips that could
centralized components and data store may pose the risk of being the
be used as assistance in self-service scenarios. There could also be
single point of failure. Redundant structures need to be built to mitigate
live sessions with experts for special categories of customers
these.
facilitated through the framework.
2. Common framework: The business groups have to spend energy
5. Business and workflow rules: A common framework for
on streamlining processes, business rules, and contents to enable
business rules, workflow rules, and integration components would
MCI. The commitment to do this may wane if the process is long-
enable banking processes to be optimized for various channels, and
drawn.
define preferred customer-product-channel associations.
3. Single source and sharing of data: Aggregation of data from
6. Communication: Communication through various channels both
disparate systems, de-duplication and data cleansing will pose
internal and external will be integrated.
challenges, especially from legacy and commercial off-the-shelf
What the benefits and how do you measure them? applications, these need to be worked through.
1. Costs: Cost efficiencies can be achieved through multi-channel 4. Compliance and privacy considerations: The magnitude of
integrations. Not only are the development and maintenance costs compliance and privacy considerations need to be evaluated in depth
reduced, the timeframes are also substantially reduced. before exposing information across channels
The costs will essentially vary according to Multi-channel integration can enable significant productivity
o Number of channels, number of back-end systems improvements in employees through simplified processes,
knowledge-worker collaboration and reduced support.
o Maturity of front-end and back-end applications
o Number of data stores, contents and de-duplication efforts
o Availability of integration components, common rules and content
engines Typically a large component of costs namely travel is
reduced through the use of video enablement. This in itself could be
a significant contributor to ROI.
2. Speed-to-market: A common framework and common services
through integration provides ability to reuse services and allows faster
product launches and services delivery across multiple channels.
3. Sales: Cross-sell measures, campaign effectiveness, lead closures
and pipeline leakages are some of the benefits from targeted marketing
and effective lead management across channels.
4. Service: Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score is a key measure of
evaluating customer service. Companies can improve CSAT scores
by anticipating a customer's need, offering the same services and
consistent information across multiple channels, allowing the
customer to transact on a channel of his choice and eliminating
duplication. Improved sales and service would lead to lower attrition,
referrals and brand loyalty.
5. Self-service capabilities: As self-service capabilities are built and
more and more service requests are handled by the customers
themselves, support and help desk costs can be significantly reduced.
Eg. A bulk of incoming calls has to do with balance enquiries. This
could be offered through every channel, and particularly over the
mobile phone, saving costs or releasing the time of contact center staff
for more complex transactions.