Remaining Agile with CRM in the financial sector: Four strategies

When I was growing up, banks were the icons of conservation. They were, by design, rigidly process-driven. Their investment decisions were cautious, as compared to investment markets (e.g. junk bonds and Black Monday), and they could be relied on for prudence above all else. It was all rather like the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank from Mary Poppins.

However, banks and the financial service industry have changed vastly since the 1980s. The sector has been transformed by deregulation and conglomeration. The rise of hedge funds and the instrumentation of debt have disrupted business models. Competition is fierce and managing the public's trust in financial institutions hasn't been this tricky since 1927. 

If that does not render the sector under enough pressure, the growth of digital technologies has forced financial institutions to further reconsider how they operate; services have been virtualised, strategy is reliant on sophisticated mathematical modelling, and internal processes are being challenged by a digital culture whose motto is "move fast and break things". 

The resulting business environment is a complicated and confusing mix of waterfall and agile operational models. Infrastructure and core banking applications tend to be rooted in waterfall best practices while marketing and online service applications tend to be more agile in inclination.

Agile CRM implementations in waterfall environments

Teams that specialize in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and other business applications often sit on the fault lines between the above-mentioned areas. 

Navigating the various demands of different stakeholders is tricky. As digital practitioners, we may be inclined toward agile methodologies, but we must service the client as they are, not as we would prefer them to be.

Therefore, we have to ask ourselves how we can ensure streamlined CRM implementations and optimisation without breaking ...