NAB commits to massive CRM transformation

NAB is undertaking a “massive” customer relationship management (CRM) transformation that will see it refactor and consolidate older systems in a new platform of internal and vendor components.

Work has started to deploy a brand new Salesforce financial services cloud platform across the bank, accessible by about 15,000 staff.

It is understood that 13 legacy systems will be replaced by this single “world-class Salesforce CRM platform”, which NAB says will enable it to “deliver an unprecedented pace of change and user experience.”

Simplification of NAB’s existing presence in Salesforce appears to have been underway for at least the past year, in readiness for the shift onto financial services cloud.

This simplification in itself is a sizable body of work, with thousands of orgs - separately managed virtual spaces in Salesforce used for a specific purpose - being consolidated into a single org.

The bank has started 2019 by building out the team working on the financial services cloud implementation.

Financial services cloud is intended to act as an opportunity and sales management capability for bankers.

However, it is only one component that will ultimately make up NAB’s transformed CRM.

The bank will also wrap its Oracle-based customer data hub - implemented in 2015 - into the new consolidated CRM environment, as well as some AWS services.

Helping to bring all these pieces together is a new, internally-built system called NABX.

Not much has been said about NABX to date, however iTnews understands it is designed to provide a consolidated user experience for both bankers and customers of the bank.

For bankers, that will mean being able to draw on customer information from across banking divisions in a single view.

For customers, the aim is increased personalisation. A customer that holds both business and retail accounts, for example, could be shown everything in one place and have the power to toggle between business and retail banking within this space.

This isn’t possible at present but NABX is seen as a key enabler for that kind of experience.

NABX itself is effectively a modular UX that is enabled by a consistent set of reusable APIs designed to expose different CRM features and capabilities from different systems.

NAB’s executive general manager for business enabling technology, Yuri Misnik, told iTnews that the CRM transformation is part of its ongoing $4.5 billion tech overhaul announced in November 2017.

“As part of our transformation program and digital modernisation we are re-imagining our approach to CRM,” Misnik said.

“We are combining multiple vendor and custom-built components, giving us the ability to pivot and be flexible as new emerging technologies become available.

“Our aim for this project is to create a world-class CRM platform that provides a single view of our customers across our organisation, allowing us to deepen customer relationships through the delivery of great customer experiences and be able to drive better customer insights.

“We are in the process of consolidating and refactoring several legacy systems as part of this work; it will allow our bankers to more easily access the information they need no matter where they are in the country, driving more efficiency for them in the way they work.”