The uncertainty businesses felt at the start of the pandemic has re-emerged with many anticipating a global slowdown. The Straits Times reports that almost three-quarters of the World Economic Forum’s Community of Chief Economists believe that a global recession is at least somewhat likely.
There are a number of factors driving this uncertainty and market volatility, including supply and demand shocks, intense measures to tame inflation, and a lack of funding for new initiatives. These impact the flow of capital and influence investment behaviours, particularly when it comes to technology.
As a result, financial services firms are adopting different methods to adapt to the changing landscape. These include platformification and digitalisation of the front office to manage operational costs while providing new digital services. Firms are also creating value and competitive advantage with new offerings such as sustainable finance.
In short, firms have both an opportunity and challenge to reimagine their business models and customer experience.
Forging new pathways to success in financial services
Salesforce Customer 360 can help firms navigate the challenges ahead and unlock new opportunities. Salesforce’s Financial Services Cloud provides the platform for financial services institutions to build trust. It unifies the customer experience across channels, geographies, and lines of business for both consumer and commercial businesses.
With purpose-built industry functionality and all the capabilities of Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, financial services firms can increase employee productivity, accelerate time to value, and deepen customer trust with every interaction. More importantly, they can be there in the moment for their customers who rely on them and trust them with their financial wellbeing.
At the same time, MuleSoft, helps firms easily automate any process to drive efficiency and productivity. MuleSoft also connects multiple systems to streamline the customer experience.
Slack supports faster resolution of issues for higher levels of customer satisfaction. The powerful collaboration tool also enables seamless communication with partners and customers, leading to less friction, more innovation, and faster decision-making.
New business models are underpinned by embedded experiences and ecosystems seamlessly integrated into the journey of customers, employees, and partners. With Salesforce’s innovative solutions, financial services can drive cost savings and build better business resilience.
Building resilience and customer engagement with data
During the pandemic, data-driven organisations proved to be more confident and resilient. To navigate this next phase of uncertainty, it makes sense for firms to turn to their data.
Tableau empowers teams with real-time insights and analytics to make informed decisions. They can make more accurate predictions about where business is heading. They can also identify opportunities to fine-tune operations and increase productivity.
With Salesforce Genie, firms can integrate data from every step in the customer experience to create a real-time customer profile. This profile enables all teams — across sales, service, marketing, and more — to tailor the experiences they provide in real time.
According to our Future of Financial Services report, three out of customers’ top five pain points in their digital experiences tie back to poor personalisation. So for those wanting to grow and engage their customer base, it is more important than ever to provide experiences tailored to each individual’s needs.
Balancing corporate responsibility and profitability
The need to build more resilient business models and drive sustainable growth will be highlighted at the Singapore FinTech Festival this week. The festival will also examine how organisations balance corporate responsibility and profitability in order to achieve greater stakeholder engagement and satisfaction.
Salesforce is a passionate proponent of stakeholder capitalism and committed to doing well by all our stakeholders — our customers, employees, partners, communities, the planet, and society as a whole. And we believe that data and technology can support more resilient and inclusive business models that serve the needs of all stakeholders in the financial services industry.
Just look at Bank Mandiri, one of the leading financial institutions in Indonesia. At the height of the pandemic, when many of its customers faced cash flow problems, Bank Mandiri leveraged its data to increase flexibility in its operations and assess customers’ suitability for a new loan restructuring program. Customers could still carry out their financial transactions and receive support with their financial and loan repayment needs.
Investing in sustainable growth
In the current climate, many firms may be feeling pressure to reduce their technology spend. However, investments in technologies like automation software can help drive efficiency and sustainable growth.
Additionally, Software-as-a-Service-based solutions that Salesforce provides reduce the upfront costs of new technology investments. Firms can pay only for what they need or, in other words, pay as they grow.
Visit us in person at the Singapore FinTech Festival to learn more about how Salesforce can help you build business resilience and customer engagement. Find us at booth #2H29 in Hall 2 at Singapore Expo from 2 – 4 November 2022.
Want to learn more?
Download ‘The Future of Financial Services’ Report to learn how you can leverage automation to deliver personalised customer experiences.
