Omnichannel Management for Banks in the B2B Segment

The future of banking is omnichannel

Customer communication that is integrated across all channels will be the new standard for companies in the near future - also for the B2B business of financial service providers. The all-pervasive presence of the mobile and stationary Internet alone has already heavily influenced the demands of business customers in terms of customer communication, products, and services. As a result, financial service companies face the challenge of fundamentally reorienting their structure, organization, and commercial processes:

+ Emerging customer segments in B2B banking are placing new demands on banks

+ New players are attacking established business models

+ Financial products and services are becoming personally and situationally tailored to the individual customer (adaptive products)

+ New product opportunities are emerging in the areas of trusts and white label products

+The omnichannel approach requires new organization, structure, processes, and incentivization from financial services providers

+ Included in this study: 23 strategic recommendations for facing these imminent changes

The study

The study bases its conclusions on the statements of the innovation managers, strategic leaders, and future experts chosen as interview subjects. Additionally, it draws upon the trend study "Insurance 2020," which, in 2014, described a reordering of the customer segments for the digital age—and caused a sensation beyond the bounds of the insurance industry. The present study uses these new customer segments in the economy and premium markets as a foundation, and describes how the omnichannel approach will alter the experience of the customer dialogue in the future, how financial service providers can establish future-proof omnichannel management, what incentivization methods will do justice to this new customer-centered approach, what organizational and structural consequences will arise as a result, and how new product opportunities for the financial sector will emerge because of these things.

What is omnichannel management?

For quite some time, many companies have already been providing their customers with a large number of communication channels. This step towards "multichannelling" was necessary and a good start, but lacked perspective. Financial services providers face the challenge of coordinating and integrating customer communication across all channels, all sectors, and all phases of the sales and customer service process. Omnichannel management - as implied - therefore changes much more than just the immediate interaction aspect of the customer service process. Omnichannel management means nothing less than new ways of bringing business customers to the focal point of company communication and the overall business model.

Banking in an omnichannel world

While, several years ago, it was the financial brands, consultants and intermediaries who enjoyed the greatest consumer trust, now, thanks to technological change, customers are increasingly shifting their confidence to digital assistance systems. Along with these systems, intelligent prognostics technologies will also find their way into the sales processes of the financial sector - either driven by individual companies or in the market on the whole. The value placed on transparency will also increase in significance.

Our expertise - your advantage

The financial sector has a big future - if that future will look different from its past! Our present study names the essential strategic drivers for the future of your industry. It also explains which players are driving which trends, and for what reasons. Using the road maps, plans, and expectations of trendsetting industry players, the study delineates a vision of the future of the industry through the next five to ten years. In giving concrete strategic options, the study reveals which steps financial services providers will need to take in order to establish the omnichannel management systems of tomorrow.

The trends described in this study are to be understood as aids for long-term strategic orientation. Be skeptical about trend studies which forecast that your industry will completely change overnight. This is pure nonsense! Most financial services providers and financial advisers will be able to continue with their current business for years to come. Granted, they will continue with steadily declining revenues, but continue nonetheless ...

This study is a guide for shaping your future. It represents an invitation to the industry to develop approaches to the future in manageable pilot projects parallel to the slowly declining classic business and thus, step-by-step, to generate more profit than is lost by that existing business. Your success in doing this - or lack thereof - will decide whether you will number among the winners or the losers of today's trends in 2020.