Market intelligence agency IDC says bank efforts to introduce customer relationship management systems are falling at the first hurdle, as they struggle to convert data from legacy systems to formats acceptable for online, real-time processing.
Karen O'Brien, a research manager with IDC's global research organisation, says: "Movement from a product-centered to a customer-centered business strategy is the critical motivator driving financial services firms to invest in the resources necessary to convert existing systems and data to new technology."
She highlights the creation of a central customer information file as essential to these efforts, but warns that the technology needed to integrate the myriad of legacy systems and the resources needed to complete the conversion process to establish and maintain such a database is proving challenging. A further difficulty involves tailoring the information from the database to the delivery channel, with customers expecting the same level of service regardless of the point of access.
According to IDC, technologies that will be able to accommodate financial services firms business strategies include XML-enabled applications, storage area networks, and object-oriented databases.