SAN FRANCISCO, March 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, announced today the general availability of Salesforce Financial Services Cloud. More than 20 partners are joining Salesforce's growing ecosystem to extend the product with applications for portfolio management, prospecting, data management and more.
Advisors are under more pressure than ever before to meet the growing expectations of today's digitally demanding investors. Proposed regulatory changes -- such as the U.S. Department of Labor's fiduciary rule requiring advisors to prove they are acting in their clients' best interests -- further increase demands on them to more effectively manage client needs. At the same time, advisors struggle to increase their client-facing time, as their days are filled with manually gathering client insights and information from separate systems to prepare for meetings. To succeed, wealth management firms must equip advisors with the latest technology to increase productivity and engage with clients on their terms.
Introducing Salesforce Financial Services Cloud
Powered by Salesforce Lightning, Salesforce's modern CRM user experience, Financial Services Cloud is helping advisors connect with clients in entirely new ways:
- Build 1-to-1 client relationships: With features including Client Profiles and Client Households, advisors gain a panoramic view of each client, accessing a full picture of the customer's household and extended network. Client Life Goals allow advisors to create collaborative financial plans for the client based on personal goals such as budgeting for college or buying a vacation home.
- Supercharge productivity: Wealth Home Page automates administrative tasks so advisors can quickly scan their daily agendas, prioritize client tasks and track client opportunities. Real-time Analytics allow advisors to slice and dice data within their books of business and reach out to clients based on interests or service models. Advisors no longer need to toggle between different systems to review portfolio drifts or segment their books of business -- they can do all this within Financial Services Cloud.
- Deliver always-on client engagement: Leveraging the Salesforce platform, which has mobile and social capabilities at its core, advisors can access Financial Services Cloud on any device and collaborate with advisory teams from anywhere. Advisors no longer have to wait for quarterly meetings to connect with investors -- they can quickly and easily share information and answer questions in micro-moments. Additionally, they have the power to instantly and virtually assemble an entire advisory team, such as attorneys and CPAs, to provide clients with collaborative advice.
Growing Ecosystem Joins Salesforce in its Journey to Reinvent Wealth Management
Leading ISVs and SIs in the Financial Services market extend the capabilities of Financial Services Cloud by building applications and providing services for all aspects of the advisor experience. These partners deliver capabilities such as:
- Account aggregation: Athene Group and Envestnet | Yodlee aggregate account data from multiple sources, such as bank accounts and 401(k)s, to provide advisors using Financial Services Cloud with holistic views of their books of business.
- Document management: DocuSign and eSignLive plan to add integrations that could allow advisors to send, sign and manage financial documents within Financial Services Cloud.
- Data aggregation: Informatica and MuleSoft bring information from multiple sources including on-premise systems, SaaS applications, enterprise databases and more into the Financial Services Cloud allowing advisors to access data from siloed systems in one place.
- Implementation services: Accenture, Capgemini, Deloitte, Fortimize, INVISR, LiquidHub, NexGen Consultants, PwC, Silverline and Unlimited Technology Solutions deliver professional services for implementation of Financial Services Cloud, ensuring the product is customized for each firm's individual needs.
- Portfolio management: Orion integrates new billing capabilities into Financial Services Cloud, allowing users to aggregate, schedule, pay and report seamlessly from within the product.
- Portfolio rebalancing: Advisor Software's rules-based rebalancing engine enables account monitoring and rebalancing at both the household and individual account level.
- Prospecting: Idio and WealthEngine extend client acquisition capabilities with services, such as wealth scoring and analytics, that assist advisors in expanding their books of business.
- Security and compliance: CipherCloud and Blue Coat provide data protection, and Smarsh adds archiving solutions, to Financial Services Cloud to ensure data and communication compliance, which is critical in a heavily regulated industry like financial services.
Comments on the News:
- "Legacy advisor solutions were created decades ago to serve a product-centric world. Today, we live in a new world that is digital- and client-centric, which is turning the wealth management industry on its head," said Simon Mulcahy, GM of Financial Services, Salesforce. "We're not only building tools that advisors need for this new world, but we're also joining forces with best-in-class partners to deliver a next-generation solution that takes advantage of modern, cloud technology. This will help advisors transform the way they serve clients."
- "Salesforce is helping us to further leverage one of our greatest strengths – our focus on clients – while improving how we do business," said Marianne Doan, EVP & Head of Enterprise Partner Services, Northern Trust.
- "Today's investors don't wait for quarterly meetings to discuss their finances with advisors; they expect to be able to engage them for advice when and how they want," said Richard Lumb, Group Chief Executive, Financial Services at Accenture. "That's why we are thrilled to partner with Salesforce in developing the Financial Services Cloud. This initiative brings the latest digital technologies to the wealth management industry to help transform the way advisers connect with their clients."
- "Advisors are in a race against the clock and cannot afford to waste precious time toggling between siloed systems to find information about their clients," said Sanjeev Kumar, President & CEO of The Athene Group. "Our integration with Salesforce will help advisors to maintain a single, holistic view of their book of business within the Financial Services Cloud."
- "The wealth management industry is undergoing rapid change, and the ability to deliver on customer expectations for a more responsive and highly personalized digital-led experience will become an increasingly important competitive differentiator," said Kieran Hines, Practice Leader for Financial Services Technology at Ovum. "Investing to enhance the customer experience is a top three IT priority for a significant number of private banks in 2016, with institutions in Western Europe and North America particularly focused on this area."
Pricing and Availability
Salesforce Financial Services Cloud is generally available today starting at $150 per user, per month.
Additional Resources
About Salesforce
Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
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