Case study

Accelerating the vendor selection process for an industry leading client portal

Lead partnerMatt Neill

We were engaged by a Tier-1 Global Investment and Asset Management firm to create a highly intuitive and personalised client portal for their Private Asset clients. The vision was to deliver an industry leading customer experience which would surpass the expectations of their clients and serve as a clear differentiator in the market place.

BeyondFS were able to accelerate the full process from strategy definition to vendor selection in just three months. This involved:

leveraging our deep industry experience to rapidly establish the business and customer requirements for the portal
using these requirements as the selection criteria to identify and filter potential vendors
leading and managing the end-to-end vendor selection process

Industry segment
Global Investment Bank
Function
Client Onboarding
Core capabilities
Target Operating Model

Key outcomes delivered

Rapidly established the requirements for a client portal that would meet both business strategy and customer needs
Leveraged knowledge of industry and technology to fast track the vendor identification and selection process
Engaged internal stakeholders at the right points to ensure time was used wisely and efficiently
Set the benchmark for future projects in terms of clarity, speed and efficiency

Results

Timeframe

0 months

to deliver end-to-end vendor identification and selection process

Analysis

0 vendors

assessed against business requirements

Savings

0 %

time saved by the client by working with BeyondFS

Challenge

From existing legacy client portal to a fully digital experience

Our Client had two critical strategic objectives:

improving the experience of their customers across all channels
meeting an ambitious 5 year growth target.

To achieve these strategic goals, the client needed to replace their existing legacy client portal for Private Asset customers with a fully digital experience, which would provide the majority of client servicing tasks as well as delivering personalised and tailored content/data.

In addition to the above, our Client wanted the portal to enable them to identify potential cross selling, marketing and new revenue generation opportunities.

However, a key challenge was the limitation on time and resources within the organisation. The Client required a partner who could take full ownership of the end-to-end process – from understanding the requirements through sourcing, identification and eventual selection of suitable vendors.

BeyondFS were given this responsibility due to our asset management expertise and extensive first-hand experience of delivering large scale digital transformation within Financial Services organisations.

Approach

Discovery, collaboration and total ownership

BeyondFS took full ownership for refining the strategy, defining the portal requirements and identifying the right vendors for the development of the client portal.

To ensure we brought the right vendors to the table, we focused our activity on really understanding the business requirements and how they matched with the organisation’s longer term digital transformation strategy. This understanding, combined with our knowledge of client portal ‘best practice’, enabled us to quickly identify a long list of 15 vendors to approach.

From the long list, we conducted an initial assessment, resulting in 10 vendors being invited to join the RFP process. Further filtering delivered a short list of 5 vendors. Each potential provider was selected against key factors within the RFP, including:

Functionality
Client usability
Uniqueness of customer experience

BeyondFS also worked very closely with one of the short-listed vendors to quickly develop a Proof of Concept, enabling the cross comparison of different technical solutions. Creating a comparative assessment at this final stage gave the Client the comfort they needed to make their final decision with confidence!

BeyondFS led this project with very little management oversight from the Client team. We established weekly meetings to keep key stakeholders informed and brought them into the process as and when they were required. This ensured that the client’s time was spent wisely and on the right activities.

Outcome

Vendor selected in just three months

As a result of our efforts, the selection process was completed in a matter of just three months. Our interpretation of the business requirements and knowledge of the marketplace meant that we were able to help the Client to identify a client portal tool that would not only improve the experience of their Private Asset customers, but also differentiate them in a crowded market.

Our forward planning and stakeholder management also meant that we were able to save the client a significant amount of time. From their own estimates, it would have taken the client 50-75% more time if they had run the project alone.

BeyondFS’ engagement has been extended and we will now be working with the Client on the next two critical phases of the project:

Phase 2: Development of MVP, test design and assess for suitability for other business areas
Phase 3: Build and phased release within the organisation

"Our mission was to find a highly intuitive and personalised client portal for our Private Asset customers. One that would not only serve their needs but also help differentiate our services in the marketplace. BeyondFS took full accountability for managing the end-to-end selection process for this ground-breaking new client portal. They very quickly understood our vision and business requirements and accelerated the journey by finding us the right solution, saving us time and money in the process. As a result of their efforts, we are building a tool we are genuinely excited about – one that we think will make a real difference to our customers. BeyondFS have set a new internal standard for delivering future projects."

Global Co-Head, Private Assets

Global Investment and Asset Manager