SIVECO Romania’s implementation of the CRM type of solution at Raiffeisen Bank

RATIONALE

Raiffeisen Bank is a top universal bank on the Romanian market, providing a full range of quality products and services to natural persons, SMEs and large corporations. Subsidiary of a group providing integrated financial services, with extensive presence in central and Eastern Europe, Raiffeisen Bank aims at becoming the leader of banking market through "quality, innovation and dynamism" - concepts defining the corporation assumed values.

Adopting high quality standards and respect for the customer are two of the concepts on which the activities within Raiffeisen Bank are based on. Managing the relationship with a very large number of customers, such as the one Raiffeisen Bank is dealing with, implies very large approach, both at conceptual and implementation level.

Thus, in 2003, the company has decided the procurement of a high performing CRM type of (Customer Relationship Management), in order to increase the efficiency of the activity of customer relationship management, an action included in the bank’s development strategy. Aiming at the successful development and implementation of such a system, Raiffeisen Bank has chosen the CRM solution proposed by SIVECO Romania.

DESCRIPTION OF THE SOLUTION IMPLEMENTED AT RAIFFEISEN BANK

The CRM type of solution implemented at Raiffeisen Bank is an application addressed to the area of corporate banking and which contains elements specific to the Romanian banking system, while being at the same time fully adjusted to meet all the requirements of the banking institution.

The solution of CRM type implemented at Raiffeisen Bank aimed at achieving the following objectives:

• Optimal management of the customer relationship
• Record of the manner of using the Raiffeisen Bank products by the bank’s customers
• Increasing the efficiency of management activities, as well as the commercial and technical teams, through easy access to any customer related information.

The application is composed of two modules:

1. Business and presentation module – application developed in Java technology, in WAR format
2. Database of CRM type composed of packages, stored procedures, tables, triggers, sequences and users.

TECHNICAL FEATURES

• The application uses the HTTPS protocol over Raiffeisen’s VPN, and IBM WebSphere 5 application server and Oracle 9i database
• The business layer is implemented in Java, JSP and JavaScript. Access to the database is implemented in JavaBeans and PL/SQL. The application has virtual users, managed exclusively from the application and are separated from the users defined in Oracle
• The application’s interface is defined visually through HTML / CSS files
• Application is built around the list of companies called Company Profile List, which contains general information on each company’s activity, its financial results, the Relationship Manager associated (RM) within Raiffeisen Bank and the products the respective company is benefiting from.

From the architecture point of view, the solution is characterized by:

• Oracle relational / object-oriented database
• Oracle 9iAS
• Web Browser
• Internet / Intranet
• Open architecture (open standards, least possible proprietary elements)
• Java / Servlets / JSP
• Java script / DHTML
• JDBC / XML
• Easy- multiplatform portability
• Horizontally extensible solution (just by adding client computers)
• Solution extensible on the vertical (replication and load balancing)
• Easy (centralized) administration
• The layer of database access is implemented in Oracle (flexibility and speed)
• The technologies used have no size or performance limitations.

The CRM type of application uses Struts framework, having the following advantages:

• It separates the presentation business through the ACTION FORWARD concept
• Facilitates writing / understanding the JSP pages by using tags (tag-lib) of following types HTML: FORM, HTML: INPUT, etc.
• Easiness in data transfer from HTML forms into JAVA objects without programming effort (ACTION FORM).

The system’s security is ensured by:

• Users (name / password)
• Roles (set of access rights)
• Groups (a set of users having the same role)
• Security at functional level (per module)
• Encryption of SSL / TSL communication with public keys
• Internal encryption of hyper-sensitive data
• Audit of data modifications (log for onscreen modification).

CRM SOLUTION FUNCTIONALITIES

Easy to use:

• Structured on logical modules, facilitating monitoring the processes it serves
• Based on Internet Explorer, inheriting the elements of standard control of the Windows graphical interface
• Adds composed control elements, for example graphic calendars, connected combo boxes that maximize the application’s ergonomics
• The modules for information display use table –like forms allowing sorting a and filtering by several criteria
• Are used reports / logs for audit and exceptions’ control
• The data pass through two validation levels prior to saving: validation on client computer and validation on the application server, this way ensuring the data consistency
• alidation on the client computer is interactive and self-explanatory (it does not require consulting the user manuals)
• validation consists in qualitative and quantitative data verification (fields’ size, values of introduced data, compulsoriness of filling in, saved / not saved status
• intuitive, attractive and easy to use graphic interface.

Easy to maintain and administer:

• the modules of rights /roles / groups administration are included in the application
• the necessary lists are implemented as reference directories (updatable / manageable)
• the administration of the reference directories can be performed by the user in decentralized manner.

ADVANTAGES OF USING THE CRM TYPE OF SOLUTION

The CRM type of solution implemented at Raifffeisen Bank facilitates a series of activities meant to contribute to the efficient management of customer relationship:

• providing an overall image of the customers, from the sales and procurement perspective
• in depth- management of customer relationship, thus contributing to strengthening the existing business relations and developing new business partnerships
• increasing the efficiency of the commercial team
• quick access to all the data regarding customers
• quick access to the business development opportunities.