Why Data Management Should Drive your Document Automation Vendor Decision

One of the criteria often overlooked by asset managers during the vendor evaluation process is data management.

The urge to minimize the data problem during these discussions is understandable. Document or website production is the marketing team’s goal. Data aggregation and quality control shouldn’t be part of the marketer’s life, but very frequently it is. This is a challenge that should be addressed clearly and upfront in evaluating document automation options.

In beginning conversations, the first thing we try to find out is how their firm is currently handling data. We do this because data really lies at the heart of the communication problem; the question of how to clean up your communication effort goes hand in hand with the question of how your data process will be addressed. Thus, as you’re defining your document automation requirements, it’s wise to look at your data management scenario. In doing this, you determine whether you have the bandwidth and skills in-house to implement quality data feeds and controls or whether outsourcing is the better or more realistic option.

In this blog, we are going to discuss why your data process should drive your automation vendor decision. There are a variety of different kinds of vendors who can automate your marketing documents. So, you’ll want to determine whether you want a vendor/product that requires internal data source and process management or a vendor who will take responsibility for creating and supporting a quality data process.

Establishing Authenticity in Your Sales Presentations

Ten years ago the average adult attention span was 10 seconds; today it’s five. With this emerging data, we now know that attention deficit disorder is not just limited to today’s younger generations. With the advent of personal computers, laptops, tablets and hand-held devices, delivery and interpretation of information happens so quickly it’s hard to keep up. Ad banners streaming along the top of a screen, icons flashing mid-screen and cartoon figures flickering along the bottom and we cannot reasonably expect anyone to pay attention off-line at the same pace that they do on-line. These trends can be particularly challenging for the traditional face-to-face sales presentation, even when accompanied by a laptop or tablet. This holds true whether the presentation is for one or two people in a back office or for a crowded room. For these reasons alone, a strong and distinctive launch into a presentation is increasingly critical. As one financial services professional puts it: “We must establish and invigorate the trust, respect and engagement of our audience—immediately.” Securing instantaneous trust is much more easily said than done, though. The key is to be authentic, someone who truly wishes to have a personal connection with their listeners. There is an overabundance of articles and books on the topic of establishing authenticity, but three key themes seem common to all:

Be personable, not personal
Brand yourself
Make it a conversation

Large Sales Force Produces More Effective and Highly Customized Retirement Plan Proposals using Automation

Summary:

An internal sales team, selling retirement plan management services to plan sponsors, produces elaborate custom pricing proposals for each potential client.

The Opportunity:

Customized proposals lie at the heart of efforts to market retirement plan solutions to plan sponsors. For one large mid-market-focused plan management company the goal became to significantly streamline custom proposal generation and to still be able to quickly handle data, product, pricing, and branding changes without significant redevelopment effort. Additionally, their implementation of Saleforce CRM should be integrated into this process enabling close-rate analysis and other operational reporting. Proposals need to be produced in real-time and support both electronic and print delivery.

The Solution:

Synthesis provides an ideal systems integration point for this solution, connecting multiple systems together and providing users with a straight-forward process.

The resulting workflow integrates data from multiple systems with dynamic composition and on-demand print ordering.
Leveraging the existing Salesforce.com implementation, users begin with a new or existing Opportunity. From there, they link to a new Proposal request – a custom UI provided.
Leveraging the existing pricing approval process, users upload an Excel file containing approved client-specific pricing parameters and calculations.
Users make a few additional selections and can then immediately preview the proposal.
As soon as the proposal is finalized, the user links to the print ordering system, provided by MerrillConnect, and relevant data is automatically uploaded back to Salesforce.com.

The proposal itself consists of a custom cover page, custom pricing pages, an explanation of services and fees (which is customized based on selected fund options), fund fees and performance based on fund options and dynamic disclosures. When delivered in hard-copy, the proposal is included in a custom-selected folder of educational material with applicable supplemental brochures determined by product selections.

In addition to handling multiple product lines with different business rules, this system has been able to flex with pricing sheet changes and new product launches. Fund data is provided by a feed from Morningstar which is loaded and staged by a quarterly process that is almost completely transparent to the sales team.

Results:

A pilot version of this system to support a new product line was launched in under two months. The fully integrated system supporting all product lines was up and running shortly after that. The sales desk is now able to easily respond to pricing requests and has been able to focus on product and messaging improvements to further improve their sales.

For more details on this case study or to learn more about our automation solutions, get in touch!

Getting Buy-in from IT for Fund Fact Sheet Automation

By Kim Rebecca

Automating the quarter-end production of fund fact sheets and other marketing materials can be a life saver for marketers. It dramatically reduces errors and improves time-to-market. However, convincing your organization to get on board with an automation initiative isn’t always easy. Making a solid business case to leadership and key stakeholders is essential. At most firms, the IT group is often the hardest to convince, but their buy-in is absolutely critical. You simply cannot move forward on this type of project without dedicated resources from IT. The IT manager will want to be sure that outsourcing a solution to a vendor is the right move and that dedicating resources to an automation project is a good investment. So, how should you present your case to IT decision makers?