If you need an example of digital disruption, you can not do better than the retail banking industry. A Byzantine collection of rules and regulations as well as the surplus of many existing systems have conspired to prevent banks from getting more involved with their clients.
Even innovations such as the automated banking machine, which came into the picture decades ago, serve only to move banks away from their customers. This leaves many opportunities for technology providers to disrupt the application.
Combine this with a generation of potential customers who have been high on digital products and services, and the result is that a large demographic group is now at stake, paving the way for a disruption.
To make easy
Not long ago, Salesforce recognized these dynamics at work and began developing vertical applications for certain industries – including banks, where large institutions must meet the requirements of large customer bases. He came up with the cloud of financial services for retail banking, announced last week.
Part of what Salesforce provides in its cloud of financial services will seem revolutionary to many bankers: things like a rich assortment of applications for all phases of the bank, from the creation of loans to management client.
However, much of the benefit comes directly from a cloud solution with easy integration and scheduled updates three times a year.
Partnership
Where the Salesforce Financial Services Cloud differs from many banking products, it's in the way it brings together banking products residing in its AppExchange to provide collaborative solutions.
For example, nCino tells a powerful story of reducing order creation time by order of magnitude – not by building a closed system but by integrating other platform products.
Another example is Vlocity, also a partner with strong banking applications based on the cloud platform. It provides intelligent and omni-channel agent services for financial services and insurance.
In these relationships and in others, you can see how Salesforce 's marketing approach is consolidating. Partners bring expertise, which can be as large as the origination of a loan or as specific as the document signature capture. All of this goes into a solution that customers can design for their specific needs in the industry.
Addition of specificity
As I have already noted many times, when companies reach the multi-billion dollar level of income, they can not expect to sell the same products in the same way that their businesses were much smaller ones.
To show growth, a business needs help – and that means acquiring other complementary businesses and selling in concert with partners who can add specificity to the core product.
Salesforce did both, and I look forward to learning more about vertical strategies at Dreamforce.
Denis Pombriant is a well-known researcher, strategist, writer and lecturer in the CRM industry. His new book, You Can not Buy Customer Loyalty, but You Can Earn It is now available on Amazon. His 2015 book, Solving for the Customer is also available here. It can be reached at
denis.pombriant@beagleresearch.com.