Navigating the Account Analysis Lifecycle: How Banks Can Modernize Each Phase for Optimal Performance
SunTec Business Solutions
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The American practice of account analysis has its roots in the Great Depression when the Glass-Steagall Act prohibited interests on corporate demand-deposit accounts (DDA). Unfortunately, not much changed in the way account analysis was carried out, and for over 50 years it remained a basic operational tool for managing pricing and billing for corporate treasury services. But today, banks are facing new pressures on revenues because of increasing competition, changing customer expectations, and macroeconomic disruption. And they must reimagine the function of account analysis to deliver differentiated and customer-centric treasury management services.
Until now most account analysis has been bereft of any innovative transformation effort. Banks sought faster processes and interfaces but did not consider how they would benefit from a complete overhaul of the account analysis function. Incremental process improvements are no longer enough to keep customers happy, and banks must initiate fundamentally broad-based and innovative revamping efforts. In fact, account analysis must holistically look at every part of the customer lifecycle to ensure a customer-centric experience as well as operational efficiency. This includes negotiation, implementation, pricing, analysis, billing, settling, and renewal. This can only be achieved with a robust, scalable technology powered revenue management platform that can effectively use account analysis capabilities across every stage of the customer journey.
Enabling the Customer Life Cycle
Negotiate
The account analysis process must begin from the time the bank begins its negotiations with the corporate customer. The sales team must have the necessary tools to evaluate new customers. They must be able to model scenarios easily and be able to access data and offer competitive pricing, rates, and comprehensive offers. A robust system will provide workflow tools that can shape the value of the offer that sales reps can negotiate and manage approval processes easily. It will allow sales teams to generate pro forma invoices and gain visibility into the entire customer lifecycle. It must be able to automate the quote to cash process seamlessly.
Implement
Currently, operations teams must manually take the details of the deal negotiated by the sales teams and integrate them into pricing and billing systems to carry out account analysis. Often, these commitments are not recorded or communicated appropriately. In fact, the deal details are still shared on Excel sheets, which are not only error-prone but also do not provide real-time visibility. There is a high risk of losing track of commitments during this handoff due to procedural gaps. But with a modern revenue management system in place, sales teams can easily determine the terms of the service agreement including pricing and customer commitments. All details can be captured in the system, which then ensures automated and seamless implementation, and also tracks customer commitments throughout their journey.
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Price
Once the deal is inked and the terms implemented, the system can help the team price every product and service accurately based on the negotiated and agreed upon terms. The system retains details of the deal, including pricing, ensuring that they are applied consistently across all transactions. The revenue management system must be integrated with the CRM system, allowing sales teams to access updated product pricing, offers, and deal information easily. Personalized pricing and deal commitments must also be recorded and incorporated within the system.
Analyze
A modern account analysis system must also be able to automate the analysis process, interface, and process data in real time to reduce errors and improve processing speed. It must be able to track and analyze customer commitments. It must be able to go beyond traditional earnings credit calculations to handle complex interest calculations like hybrid accounts where earnings credit offsets fees, and interest is calculated on excess balances.
Bill
At the end of analysis process, the system must be able to generate statements in multiple formats as required by the customer. It must have the ability to handle multi-currency and multi geography requirements. With these automated processes the bank can offer self-service features for greater customer satisfaction and ensure greater billing transparency and flexibility.
Settle
The bank can offer a range of settlement methods for direct debit or invoicing along with a variety of earnings credit carry forward options. Automated post-invoicing processes like dispute management and query handling can ensure that customer issues are handled efficiently, accurately, and swiftly.
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Renew
The system must maintain and monitor the contract’s lifecycle, ensuring deals are reviewed and renewed well in time before they expire. This is crucial for watertight revenue management. Often, long-term contracts are not reviewed in time and customers remain on outdated pricing long after their initial contract period ends, leading to revenue loss. The platform must track contract duration automatically and alert sales teams when it is time to re-engage and e-negotiate terms. Product managers also often adjust pricing on an annual basis to meet profitability targets. The system must be able to support this by allowing for scenario modelling. This comprehensive approach ensures that the renewal and repricing processes are effectively managed, balancing revenue goals with customer satisfaction.
Modernized Real-Time Account Analysis
How would an integrated, powerful system like this work in real life? Let’s consider a bank with multiple transaction systems, each of which needs to be accessed and analyzed by the account analysis function. It takes one week every month to collate transaction volumes, apply pricing, and generate statements. The first week of the month is often chaotic for the operations teams who must deal with a sudden influx of multiple files, manual data entry formats, and high error rates, which can cause revenue leakage. Customers are left with inaccurate statements, and no real-time visibility into their liquidity. With an integrated system in place, the bank can ensure real-time pricing, or price transactions as they occur instead of as a batch process. They can aggregate transactions and apply pricing flexibly at intervals that work for them, such as monthly or daily, and then aggregate charges accordingly. This will reduce the pressure on operations, cut down errors, and ensure timely, accurate statements. Real-time account analysis can be a significant differentiator for most banks. ?It offers customers immediate visibility into balances, transaction volumes, and fees so that they can carry out their cash forecasting more efficiently and accurately.
The Role of a Robust Middle Layer Account Analysis Solution
The good news is that modernizing account analysis systems does not necessarily require a complete overhaul of a bank’s legacy systems. They can choose to work with a specialized partner who can provide a cloud-native, microservices-based solution that can sit over the legacy core as an agile middle layer. This can seamlessly integrate with disparate processes and systems to embed account analysis across the customer’s lifecycle. It can ensure real-time visibility, enhanced agility, improved revenue management, and customer satisfaction.
Most treasury customers are looking for real-time visibility into their accounts, to better manage their liquidity, and cash flow forecasting. In addition, they want error-free billing, fair and transparent pricing, and seamless renewals. Banks must focus on modernizing account analysis to embed it into every stage of the customer lifecycle to ensure efficient processes. Above all, they must consider modernizing account analysis to plug revenue leakage with tightly integrated and automated processes that do away with legacy operational inefficiencies.?
Meet our team at AFP 2024 to learn more about how Banks can reinvent their Account Analysis function and unlock new possibilities.
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