To exploit new technological advances in order to increase market share and deepen customer relationships.
Solution
A sophisticated package of Unisys Consulting and Wealth Management, or Personal Financial Management, Solutions contributing to The Woolwich's "Open Plan."
Benefits
Market leadership, increased product penetration per customer, and faster time-to-market with new products
How to be a market leader
Success in today's fast-paced financial services marketplace depends on a bank's ability to provide exceptional, differentiated and secure customer service with the highest internal efficiency. Harnessing new technological advances is critical, as is acting quickly.
The Woolwich – through its work with Unisys and other IT partners – has not simply succeeded; it is now widely regarded as being at the leading edge of banking and e-strategy throughout the European financial community. Central to this assessment is the success of the "Open Plan" integrated personal financial suite, which delivers unparalleled customer service through the use of advanced technologies and new delivery channels.
The objectives of Open Plan were clear
- To achieve competitive differentiation by demonstrating innovation and implementation of new ideas and technologies
- To optimize customer service and convenience by implementing a fully integrated, multi-channel, personalized banking service that is available via the branch, telephone, Internet, wireless application protocol (WAP) mobile telephones – a first for the UK – and interactive digital TV
- To implement this multi-channel solution whilst maintaining its existing investment in legacy systems
- To ensure the solution has optimum availability (24 hours a day, 365 days a year), scalability, resilience and supportability
- To achieve 2 million customers within three years
Turning a plan into practice
However, the issue of how to transform this vision into reality was a much more complex matter. The Woolwich could not simply ignore its substantial existing technology investment – they had to find a more evolutionary route. The Bank also had to find a way of implementing the solution in a way that ensured scalability, reliability, supportability and effective change management.
The technical solution to these issues was to integrate new technologies and channels with The Woolwich legacy systems via state-of-the-art middleware. When it came to actually implementing their Open Plan vision, however, The Woolwich sought the consulting and technical expertise of Unisys.
John Crane, General Manager for IT at The Woolwich, says: "When we were building from the Open Plan vision through to how we would actually do this, Unisys gave us a lot of consultative support. Their understanding of the entire technological environment helped turn theory into reality."
Crane explains: "Open Plan is a true 'clicks and mortar' solution. We haven't gone down the stand-alone Internet bank route. It's truly multi-channel. This service is available through our branch network, through the telephone – we built a 24x7 call center to support it – and through the Internet. It is currently available on WAP mobile telephones and most recently on interactive digital TV, which broadens the reach to a whole new audience."
The key element of Open Plan, however, was about delivering optimum, personalized customer service and accessibility. As Tony O'Reilly, IT Infrastructure Development Manager at The Woolwich states: "What is important to us is not just the product; it's the interface with our customers. We want to help our customers manage their financial portfolios better than anyone else‚ and we want to make it easier and more convenient for them to do so."
Open Plan allows customers to transact all of their financial affairs through their preferred channel or via multiple channels. They are also allocated a single customer number which acts as an umbrella for all financial products. Savings accounts, mortgages and ISAs, for example, are all served using this single entry point.
Such transparency across different financial products allows The Woolwich to adopt innovative techniques for helping customers manage their finances. Transparency is also vital for The Woolwich to conduct highly targeted customer marketing campaigns - something that has driven its strong product penetration figures.
Understanding the potential benefit of delivering a multi-channel, highly targeted service to gain a larger share of each customer's overall spend on financial services has paid dividends for The Woolwich. Open Plan customers have increased their personal portfolio of Woolwich financial products from one or two products to three or four.
The Unisys contribution
In helping to make Open Plan happen, Unisys provided a whole range of consulting, technology and systems integration skills to complement those of The Woolwich.
According to Crane, "We have Unisys people totally integrated into our teams – attending meetings and generally being involved every step of the way. They have brought unrivalled expertise and consistently high levels of project management and planning."
Unisys worked closely with The Woolwich to help define and evolve their requirements. Crane comments: "Unlike others, Unisys was prepared to listen to our needs and not just push a 'big bank' packaged solution onto us. It was this that attracted me to them in the past and it is this pragmatism and flexibility that I enjoy now."
O'Reilly adds: "What Unisys gives me is ease of management. When I ask for a piece of work to be done they tell me what it will cost and I know it will get done. It's as simple as that. They bring in the expertise as and when they need it. And typically, if they say they've got someone with a particular skill, I know I'm going to get it. They've demonstrated it time after time. So there's trust in place – and that's fundamental to us."
The powerful working partnership of Unisys and The Woolwich, has delivered real and tangible results:
- Market leadership: The Woolwich is the first U.K. financial institution to provide interactive mobile banking services via WAP technology and the only bank with true channel integration across branches, telephone, Internet, WAP and interactive digital TV
- Product penetration of 3.7 products per customer (U.K. industry average is 1.5)
- A strategic change of direction that enables The Woolwich to know its customers better and to attract, target and retain them more effectively
- Rapid time to market with new products and services
- Enhanced future revenue stream
- Recognized industry leadership in multi-channel technologies
- Technical skills transfer from Unisys to The Woolwich so the institution is completely able to support and evolve its solution
- Competitive advantage: initial discussions to pilot implementation in just 6 months
- Substantial growth during 2000
Open Plan was a highly complex undertaking that has only been achieved as a result of the strong partnership between The Woolwich and its technology partners. As The Woolwich Group Chief Executive, John Stewart, says: "Unisys was key in making Open Plan happen and happen in a reasonable time."
He adds: "We believe that success in today's environment is driven by two things: people and the practical application of I.T. There was no way we could deliver Open Plan on our own. We had to find people that could help us. But we didn't want suppliers. We wanted partners. There's a key difference. In order to succeed you must have a can-do attitude. You must have the attitude of people who want to win. Unisys joined us in every sense of this."
