Mutual Fund Cos. & Brokers are Behind Banks in CRM

Customer relationship management is penetrating all walks of financial services, but it seems banks are ahead of the game in fully integrating the concept into their business strategy, according to a recent teleforum conducted by TowerGroup’s Kathleen Khirallah, senior analyst in the Retail Banking Group. While retail banks have historically led the way in CRM adoption, the remaining sectors—which include mutual funds, discount brokers, full service brokers and property and casualty insurers—are expected to gain ground in the coming years.

“We think of CRM as being a business strategy, not just as a technology,” says Khirallah. “There’s a whole range of technologies that need to be brought together in order to execute a CRM business strategy and there’s an understanding that it’s really both the back and front office and they need to work together.”

Khirallah estimates that retail banks will be the first to reach the final phase of CRM deployment across multiple channels between 2001 and 2004 while discount brokers and mutual fund companies should get there sometime after 2004 and full service brokers expected to complete the process post 2005.