Considering the wide spectrum of services expected by investors today in the Financial Services landscape, it is difficult to manage with home grown legacy solutions. Financial Institutions have identified the power and the potential cloud computing offers in reshaping the entire customer interaction and experience. Cloud is remolding on how financial institutions are trying to look into their investment on IT and bringing in the change for better agility, productivity and innovative ways to reach and service their customers.
Salesforce, the World’s #1 CRM is no step behind in moving with this trend, it launched its first ever cloud dedicated to Financial Services which would give Advisors the next generation tool to build deeper 1-to-1 client relationships, supercharge productivity and collaborate with their customers like never before. Client first is a reality, providing personalized service anytime anywhere is no longer a worry.
So, couple of obvious questions pops up when there is a new product launch –
What’s in this product? How different is it from the existing Wealth Management app? Is this going to be free?
1. What’s in this product?
It is designed for high-touch client relationship management empowering advisors to deliver personalized services to customers. Accelerate productivity of advisors by providing 360 degree view of customers and help in building deeper, lasting and more profitable relationships. It is easily connected with industry leading financial products making it a one stop destination for financial advisors.
a. The Salesforce Data Model for Financial Services Cloud
Individual Client Model – Individual client is mapped through a combination of Account and Contact, unified view is provided.
Mapping of Client’s Financial Account – It is mapped through the Financial Account custom object linked with Account and its related objects (Financial Holding, Securities).
Client’s Other Assets, Liabilities and Goals – It is mapped using the Assets and Liabilities and the Financial Goals custom objects.
How is Household Modelled? – Account -represents the Household entity and the various relationships are mapped through the Account-Account Relationship, Account-Contact Relationship, Contact – Contact Relationship and Reciprocal Roles custom objects.
Does it implement a Party Model? – Supports concepts of party and party relationships but not party role.
b. Other Features
i) Advisor Profile
ii) Last and Next Interaction dates are refreshed automatically at a specified schedule via a batch job.
iii) Default Dashboards and Reports for Clients and Household.
iv) Supports Multiple Addresses for clients.
v) Clients’ financial accounts, assets, and liabilities are automatically totalled for each individual client and multiple individuals’ totals can be summarized at the household level.
c. Integrated with leading financial products
Salesforce has partnered with leading independent software vendors (ISVs) to extend the capabilities of Financial Services Cloud by building applications and providing services for all aspects of the advisor experience.
| Features | Partner Products |
| Account Aggregation | Athene Group and Envestnet | Yodlee provide an aggregation platform for Financial Services Cloud. Centralized data hub for managed and held away accounts provides a holistic view. |
| Data Aggregation | Informatica and MuleSoft connect Financial Services cloud with core backend system such as asset management, portfolio management, risk and trust operations, to aggregate critical investment data in the cloud. |
| Portfolio Management | Orion integrates new billing capabilities into Financial Services Cloud, allowing users to aggregate, schedule, pay and report seamlessly from within the product |
| Portfolio Rebalancing | Advisor Software’s rules-based rebalancing engine enables account monitoring and rebalancing at both the household and individual account level. |
| Prospecting | Idio and WealthEngine extend client acquisition capabilities with services, such as wealth scoring and analytics, that assist advisors in expanding their books of business |
| Security and Compliance | CipherCloud and Blue Coat provide data protection, and Smarsh adds archiving solutions, to Financial Services Cloud to ensure data and communication compliance, which is critical in a heavily regulated industry like financial services. |
d. Financial Services Cloud Packages – It is available in two packages
i) Managed Package – Includes most of the functionality i.e. the data model, profiles, list views and administrative configurations.
ii) Unmanaged Extension Package – Includes field sets that configure the display of fields within the client and household profiles.
e. Limitations
i) Features not supported –
- Duplicate Management
- Salesforce Shield
- Multiple Currencies
- Internationalization
- Accessibility features have not been incorporate
ii) Feature Limitations
- Lead conversion is not supported for Individual and Household Accounts.
- Access to client and household profiles on the Salesforce1 mobile app is fully supported.
- Person Accounts require additional configurations.
- Household rollup summary field limitations – does not enforce validation rule to API driven data loads, household membership updated via API does not calculate rollup automatically.
- Trusts, partnerships, and other asset ownership structures are not modelled explicitly.
2. How different is it from the Wealth Management App?
The answer to the first question clearly shows the vast possibilities that the product offers in comparison to the free Wealth Management App. I was wondering do I really have to mention this package but had done so many implementations with this app that thought it was worth a mention. This is the free version with lot of limitations and is not a complete wealth management solution. Many custom solutions have already been built by ISVs to overcome the shortfalls of this app. So, eventually this app would definitely phase out.
3. Is it going to be free?
All good things come with a price, so does Financial Services cloud. It is available in Lightning Experience in Enterprise and Unlimited edition for $150/user/month.
For more information regarding Financial Services Cloud – https://resources.docs.salesforce.com/200/latest/en-us/sfdc/pdf/salesforce_finserv_impl_guide.pdf
Read our case studies on Finance – Customized Wealth Management Solution, Partner Communities Implementation
References –
https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2015/08/salesforce-financial-services-cloud.html