To meet the 2005 deadline for Straight Through Processing and comply with regulations, financial services firms will have to eliminate paper-based trading systems, automate trading and reconciliation procedures and connect internal and external business processes.
An additional hurdle is the steady consolidation in this market - while mergers and acquisitions offer operational economies, they also create enormous challenges as managers attempt to integrate the multiple IT infrastructures that manage business-critical information.
According to June Julyan, product manager of , the answer lies in leveraging enterprise information to reduce costs, enhance customer relationships and improve operating efficiencies. "This cannot be done when back-office operations are managed through multiple, disconnected applications," she points out. "Also, consumers` expectations have risen as they gain a better understanding of technology. They expect to use their financial institution`s Web site to trade, pay bills and manage their accounts - anything less is simply unacceptable."
Financial services firms already recognise that content generated by production systems such as billing, finance, accounting and customer relationship management will fuel next-generation e-business applications. The trick is to manage and transform this business-critical output into the appropriate format for multiple delivery channels to employees, customers and partners.
There are solutions available on the market which address these strategic issues by integrating enterprise information and making it instantly available. A leader in the field of total content management (TCM) systems is , represented in SA by Bateleur Software Solutions, with its ViewDirect TCM solution.
"ViewDirect TCM combines content and process to support all e-business requirements as well as internal operations, thereby eliminating the fragmented information views that result from multiple, incompatible systems," Julyan says. "It is simple to implement, easy to use and scales to grow with the enterprise. It supports volumes from a few thousand to billions of pages per month."
At the heart of ViewDirect TCM is the world`s most powerful enterprise content repository. Acting as the foundation for total content management, the repository captures, stores and Web-enables content from any source - statements, trade confirmations, report output, scanned forms, e-mail, loan documents and customer correspondence.
"This system makes all customer information instantaneously accessible. A single request returns all the information about a customer, a transaction or an account. ViewDirect TCM also makes it easy for financial institutions to provide customer self-service as customers have secure Internet access to information about their accounts and transactions," Julyan says.
The ViewDirect TCM content repository integrates information in any format from any source. Documents are delivered via print, fax, e-mail, browser or wireless device to any location and any recipient. Customers view their account information online or obtain reprints of statements and other documents at any branch office.
"ViewDirect TCM provides a 360-degree view of the customer - a single source for information on multiple accounts. It also enables one of the most important measures of superior service - the ability to resolve inquiries on a single call - while reducing customer service costs," Julyan says.
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