Announced in 2015, Financial Services Cloud (FSC) is a long-standing offering from Salesforce. Its platform goal is to empower Financial Institutions to build deeper 1-on-1 client relationships, be more productive, and engage with clients everywhere.
The platform includes capabilities for managing interactions, the full client lifecycle, financial goals, and regulatory compliance.
Financial Services Cloud is a purpose-built platform, ready to add tremendous value to any Financial Services organization wanting to align business needs and data – allowing for a more comprehensive and interconnected view of clients, their financial relationships, and their goals.
However… before any organization jumps into FSC, it’s important to recognize that this is a significant change. And to get the most out of any technology product, organizations must be aligned on the big picture and the overall vision.
In this blog, we’ll review key considerations that are critical in any successful business transformation – specifically the Organizational considerations that you should have in mind before jumping into Salesforce Financial Services Cloud. (In the next instalment of this blog, we’ll take a look at the other piece of the puzzle – the Technical needs).
Organizational Considerations for Implementing Financial Services Cloud
Team alignment
As organizations grow and become more complex, leadership autonomy also grows. This means that many leaders may have specific, individual goals that are slightly different from the overall goals of the organization, and more specific to the line of business in question. In some cases, leadership teams believe they are completely in alignment with each other, but when detailed discovery is undertaken, there are differences in the ideal state or understanding of the current challenges and goals. It is important to validate that the goals and perceived challenges are in alignment across the leadership team, and that the team is in agreement in the approach and investment required to address the challenges and opportunities.
As an organization that specializes in these types of transformations, CloudKettle’s practice has been to achieve alignment through collective discovery and individual interviews with stakeholders. The information gathered during these sessions is reported back to the collective team for debate, confirmation, and iteration prior to being finalized as part of an overall project/program charter.
In the many business transformations CloudKettle has been involved in, the most successful were the ones that involved not only executives and transformation influencers, but also front line team members. While input from the front line needs to be validated against transformational goals, they are extremely valuable as they represent the customer moments that matter and the employee minutes and seconds that drive costs.
Clear Definition of Desired Outcomes
“We need better reporting” is not a desired outcome; it is a secondary result of the ultimate desired outcomes. Organizations must be clear on what they are trying to achieve.
Example of a desired outcome: We want to increase cross-selling of life insurance to private wealth customers by 5% by the end of fiscal 2026. As a result of this outcome a subset of outcomes are also required, such as the need for better reporting to identify all private wealth customers without life insurance.
When taking on any business transformation program the desired outcomes should be laid out early in the journey. Similar to any other business metric or goal they should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timebound) and monitored throughout the progression of the transformation and post go live.
When organizations take the time to define the desired outcomes of the transformation, this creates a “north star” or guiding principles. Take the time to engage teams, including your trusted internal and external partners and customers, map out the desired outcomes, and then use them as the litmus test for go forward decisions. This will help the organization focus on what really matters throughout the program.
Change Readiness
As an organization, take the time to consider your ability and readiness to change. While most people will eventually adapt over time to any changes delivered by their organization, not addressing change management properly will put programs and the desired outcomes at risk. Some risks may seem immaterial, but they can have a major consequence when it comes to the speed and efficiency with which the organization realizes desired outcomes. Change management considerations can be far reaching and have negative consequences if not anticipated and addressed early in the initiative. Make sure there is executive buy-in and a plan for adoption across the organization.
Effort vs Value vs Risk Prioritization
Not every organization has the resources available to take on a large-scale business transformation, and in most cases the transformations are long term, multi-phase projects. In order to maximize the odds of a successful project or program the organization should undergo a value and complexity mapping exercise. The goal of this exercise is to determine which elements of the larger transformation program should be prioritized and in what sequence the program should be delivered. Each organization will differ slightly with regards to what is most critical to deliver first. In most cases the mapping usually involves delivering low complexity/high value components first, and taking on the more complex higher risk components of the project later.
Delivering low complexity/high value projects early gives the organization momentum in the form of significant wins, while allowing the project teams to create a successful working environment. These early project successes also serve as a way to recoup part of the investment as early as possible in the initiative, and minimize overall project risk. This is not always possible, and many times the only initiative worth doing is the one that is the hardest. When this is the case, CloudKettle recommends that organizations break the large initiative down into smaller more achievable deliverables, while setting appropriate risk and time expectations with stakeholders.
It is also worth noting that this should be an iterative process. Attempting to make wholesale change across the entire company at once can be too large a change management lift and it comes at a level of risk that is not palatable for most organizations.
Timing
Understand what timing considerations should be factored into the transformation. Multiple factors may contribute to when a certain initiative should or should not be undertaken. Some examples may include: reporting dates, budget releases, new offering releases, license expiry dates, busy seasons, or simply holidays for key personnel.
Technology Stack
Pertaining to the technology stack, this consideration is complex and unique to every organization. Each business will need to evaluate their needs and determine how much should be executed with current technology available within the organizations portfolio and how much should be sunsetted with newer purpose fit technology. These decisions should be weighed based on the program charter, transformational goals, timing and budgets.
While any organizational transformation comes with risks, taking time to carefully consider these factors will help set your organization up for success with a Salesforce Financial Services Cloud implementation. Stay tuned for our next instalment, where we’ll take a dive into the Technical Considerations.
Want more? This blog is an excerpt from our upcoming “Salesforce Financial Services Cloud for Wealth Managers”. Add yourself to the CloudKettle VIP List to be the first to access this helpful resource as soon as it’s live!
Want to talk about Financial Services Cloud? (Or any part of Salesforce, really.) Get in touch! We’d love to chat.