Reference no: EM132234336

Sometimes, the best is the worst enemy of the good. In software, too much sophistication may alienate customers instead of improve service. Managers at one successful business learned this the hard way. Citizens National Bank of Texas has a long history. It was established in Waxahachie, Texas, in 1868, and is still privately held. The bank has 16 offices. It does not try to compete with big banks, but rather caters to small communities of 500-25,000, and emphasizes friendly customer service. The extra care has paid off: the bank enjoys two to two and a half cross-sales per customer, a ratio considered high in banking. This means that, on average, each customer has purchased more than two products, such as a checking account, savings account, or home loan. Banks’ profitability is highly related to the number of services the same customer purchases. Citizens’ best customers use six or seven products. For many years the bank tracked customer contacts manually. Relationship bankers—as the bank’s sales people are called—wrote down on paper the details of contacts. Every Monday, management received a sales report covering the previous week and the calls each banker was going to make that week. With 50,000 customers and many prospective ones, this information soon became reams of paper. The documents contained good information, but the information was difficult to glean and manage. In 2001, management decided to install a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The product chosen was a CRM package from Siebel Systems (which was later acquired by Oracle). Citizens National hoped to enable the CEO and the 16 relationship bankers to improve tracking of prospective customers and increase the number of contacts the bankers made. The bank hired a local consulting firm that specializes in installing software for small businesses. The cost of the new software was $150,000. Installing it and adapting it to the bankers’ needs cost another $350,000. Siebel’s CRM software is recognized as very good, but it was overkill for the bankers, who were typically old-fashioned sales people not keen on using technology. The system has many features that the bankers did not need, and lacked simple features that they did need. It was too sophisticated for Citizens’ simple handling of customers. Much of the adaptation time was spent turning off unused features. Large companies often use CRM systems to set up customer support cases, which are files with details of complaints and how they were resolved, from beginning to end. The bank did not need this function. When customers call to complain, the call center handles the complaint immediately, or channels it to the appropriate officer for immediate resolution. If a customer needs a new checkbook, the call center sends an e-mail message to the proper bank worker who handles checkbook orders. The request for the activity is scheduled, and the bank worker handles such requests in the order in which they come in. The new system did not support this simple way of operation. The bankers found navigating the new system challenging. Moving from a window to another relevant window was not intuitive, and the bankers wasted much time. They expected to see the typical opportunities to sell more services to a customer listed in the record of the customer. For example, they expected to see an opportunity to offer the customer a business loan listed. However, such opportunities must be entered by the system’s users when the customer record is set up. Different relationships with the same customer might be on different screens. The bankers were confused, and could not get a good sense of all the relationships a customer might have with the bank (such as which services the customer used or a history of complaints the customer had). They had to flip screens constantly. The relationships were organized in a manner inconvenient to the bankers. A consultant that specializes in CRM systems observed that Siebel’s system had everything, which is typically too much for small businesses. These clients, he said, usually lose the forest for the trees. Another challenge was integrating Siebel’s software with Citizens’ banking software. Like many small and medium size banks, it uses Kirchman Bankway. The software helps process and track deposits, loans, and trust accounts. While the Kirchman software keeps customer last and first name in a single field in its database, Siebel’s systems keeps them in two separate fields. This and other differences made integration of the systems time-consuming. The bankers did not expect the integration time to be so long. After three years, Citizens’ management decided to abandon Siebel’s system. The bank’s consulting firm was committed to automating CRM at the bank. It offered an alternative: QuickBase. QuickBase is offered by Intuit, the company whose fame comes from software such as the financial analysis application Quicken. Research Green Computing and Green Projects performed by large organizations such as IBM, Dell, HP, and Google or any financial institution of your choice . 1.What were the goals of installing CRM software? 2.A Siebel executive commented that the company’s CRM system does not fit the needs of all clients. He noted that the clients need to decide if they want an application or a tool kit. Research the term “tool kit.” Considering Siebel’s CRM system and Intuit Quick -Base, which is an application and which is a tool kit? Explain why. 3.The bank’s president said that management learned a lesson, and that the $500,000 spent on the abandoned CRM system was tuition for that education. What would you have done in the first place to avoid this “tuition”? 4.Research Green Computing and Green Projects performed by large organizations such as IBM, Dell, HP, and Google or any financial institution. See www.greenercomputing.com or find sites on your own. a) Provide your definition of what green computing / green banking means to you. b) Describe one(1) area of green computing, including a detailed example of how it has been or can be implemented at a Caribbean Financial Institution of your choice.