NexJ Builds CRM Systems for Financial Services, Healthcare
NexJ has managed to carve out a solid niche for itself in the customer relationship management (CRM) market by focusing on a small segment: financial services, insurance and healthcare.
The Toronto-based company, which just refreshed its financial services CRM offering, was founded by CEO William Tatham in 2003, three years after he sold his first financial services CRM company, Janna Systems, to Siebel, now part of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL).
eCRM Guide recently caught up with NexJ's senior vice president of products, Paul DeVriendt, to discuss the unique CRM needs of the financial services and healthcare industries.
Financial services CRM needs back office integration
DeVriendt said one of the most important features a financial services CRM system needs is the ability to integrate with back office systems and data. Such features are “key to success and user acceptance,” he said, “so we architected to do that and perform at scale in highly integrated environments.”
DeVriendt, who was vice president of product management at Janna, said investment and institutional banking was hot in the late 1990s, thanks in part to the dot-com boom. Today, wealth management and insurance are where the money is. One of the company's biggest customers is financial giant Wells Fargo.
An integrated CRM system is essential for attracting and retaining financial advisers, DeVriendt said. “Advisers expect a certain level of capabilities at their desktops,” he said.
Opening accounts must be automatic he said, and financial and account data must be tied in with client data. Loyalty programs are another important feature, as are news and social feeds, particularly tools like LinkedIn that can tell an advisor a lot about someone's background and relationships. Advisors want to spend their time growing assets, not on manual processes, he said.
Insurance users have many of the same needs, DeVriendt said. Multichannel support that prods agents to contact leads quickly after information is captured is important, as is lead management and mobile support.
Healthcare CRM helps target services
NexJ expanded into the healthcare market after Tatham noticed some failings with the Canadian healthcare system.
Health insurance, health payer organizations and HMOs have their own unique CRM needs, DeVriendt said, and member relationship management is chief among them.
With greater knowledge of members, organizations can sell more services or target wellness tools and disease screening, and HMOs can better manage care and control costs, he said.
Paul Ferrill has been writing for over 15 years about computers and network technology. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering as well as a MS in Electrical Engineering. He is a regular contributor to the computer trade press. He has a specialization in complex data analysis and storage. He has written hundreds of articles and two books for various outlets over the years. His articles have appeared in Enterprise Apps Today and InfoWorld, Network World, PC Magazine, Forbes, and many other publications.
