Salesforce has finally launched its Financial Services Cloud. It has been a long time coming but you can say that it is something that is purely inevitable. This new Salesforce offering zones in on the retail banking industry.
Stepping Into the Vertical Industry Cloud Market
It can be said that this new venture isn’t exactly new. Its original version targeted wealth managers. But product managers in Salesforce have been talking about moving into the retail banking arena for more than two years now.
You already have a hint as to how much work has been put into the new Financial Services Cloud. It took them two years before finally stepping things up and putting it into the forefront. It took them a while before making it generally available to all potential customers.
Breaking The Silo Mentality
This retail banking version of the originally conceptualized cloud service has some ambitious goals. Its functions have been designed to break that silo mentality that has haunted incumbent players in the retail banking industry.
Given their current operational structure, retail banking players have setup their operations into different compartments – data, operational, and technology. This has separated the different customer facing staff in this banking sector. Tellers, mortgage officers, and personal bankers provide customers seemingly independent levels of service.
The Salesforce Financial Services Cloud is looking into integrating all of these compartmentalized silos into one continuous, fluid, and holistic service that focuses on the needs of the bank’s customers. You can say that you wrap everything around the customer and customize different platforms and offerings towards their needs.
This sets up retail banking players into a connected ecosystem. It also paves the way for intelligent referrals and a data model that allows the Financial Services Cloud to provide a single view of the customer’s data, which allows staff and key personnel to visualize and evaluate how the client has been interacting with the bank.
Note that it doesn’t replace any bank’s internal system. If anything, it provides a way to integrate data to help overcome internal barriers. This allows incumbent players to step up and become more competitive in the 21st century.