growing importance of crm

The importance

of CRM

January 27

2013 By: Dineshkumar NINGTHOUJAM Under the supervision of Mrs. Nadia CAMUS NATIXIS (27th August 2012 – 27th January 2013) Maitrise D’ouvrage (Business Analyst)

ESIGELEC MSc. BIS 2011-2013

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1 The importance of CRM MSc. Business Information Systems By: Dineshkumar NINGTHOUJAM

Abstract Due to the technological advancement and globalization more and more

companies have to face tough competition in real time. In order to succeed

and shine among the competitors, a company must have its own unique

strategy that has to be implemented and maintained with time. One of the

main factors which strongly contributes towards the success of a company is

to know what they are doing and dealing with (“Customers”). Data’s coming

in out and out has to be recorded, stored and maintained in order for the

company to be able to predict the trends. One of the most important data is

of the customers. These data has to be maintained and studied in a proper

manner so that a company can understand the customer behavior.

Customer Relationship Management plays in important role in maintaining

and studying these data by utilizing a CRM tool. The CRM collects information

from all possible data sources inside an organization and also from external

sources if it is found to be appropriate. This is to provide a bird’s eye view of

each customer. CRM also helps in the decision-making process, cost

reduction, and profit maximization and in building customer loyalty.

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Acknowledgement This thesis is compiled during the duration of my internship, which is from 27th of

August 2012 until 27th of January 2013 at NATIXIS Bank and completed after

the completion of my internship. During the process of writing this thesis, a

number of people have helped me in making this work come into fruition.

Without their invaluable contribution it would not have been possible to

complete this thesis.

I would first like to take the opportunity to extend my sincere gratitude to my

supervisor Mrs. Nadia CAMUS for all her invaluable guidance, encouragement

and support. Your feedbacks on the work I have done have helped me to

bring out the best of me. It was a great pleasure working with you. Thank you

for making my internship a fun and exciting learning experience.

I would also like to thank Mr. Alban VALLOIS for being there whenever I

needed some help or clarification and also for being patient in times of

difficulties. You have been an influence for me throughout the course of my

internship. I walked in as a clean slate in NATIXIS and now I leave as a person

full of knowledge and ready to face life. Furthermore, I would like to thank

Miss. Monica RAMIREZ for being a constant support system. Your presence

always enlightened me. It was fun and exciting to work with you.

I would like to thank my Dad, Mom, my siblings and my beloved brother

Michael NINGTHOUJAM whom I miss dearly, for being always supportive in

what I do. Thank you for believing in me and encouraging me all the time.

Without your love and support I would not be who I am today.

Paris, 27th January 2013 Dineshkumar NINGTHOUJAM

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Table of Contents NATIXIS 5

NATIXIS (GLOBAL PRESENCE) 6

BRIEF HISTORY OF NATIXIS 7

KEY FIGURES OF NATIXIS (2012) 8

NATIXIS BUSINESS LINE 9-11

CRM 12-13

CRM - BENEFITS 14

CRM GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION 15

MY ROLE IN NATIXIS 16

OSACT SELLIGENT 17

OSACT SELLIGENT (CARTOGRAPHY) 18

OSACT SELLIGENT AND ITS FUNCTIONS 19

OSACT SELLIGENT ACCESS RIGHTS 20-23

OSACT SELLIGENT AND ITS TABS 24

DASHBOARD (OSACT SELLIGENT) 25

CLIENT (OSACT SELLIGENT) 26

PERSON (OSACT SELLIGENT) 27

ACTION (OSACT SELLIGENT) 28

DEAL (OSACT SELLIGENT) 29

NATIXIS ASSOCIATE (OSACT SELLIGENT) 30

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Table of Contents RESPONSIBILITIES OF BUSINESS ANALYST 31

MIGRATION OF VERSION 32-33

CHECKING FOR BUG 34

CREATION OF NEW USER 35

CREATION OF REPORTS (SAP BO) 36

OSACT – SAP BO SYNCHRONIZATION 37-38

OSACT – OUTLOOK SYNCHRONIZATION 39

OBSTACLES OF A BUSINESS ANALYST 40-42

REFERENCES 43

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NATIXIS Natixis was founded in the year 2006 as a part of groupe BPCE that is the

second largest banking player in France. Natixis commits to its own client

base, institutional investors and financial institutions as well as professional,

small business, medium business client base of groupe BPCE retail banking

networks. Natixis has branches worldwide, ranging from EMEA (Europe, Middle

East, Africa), Asia Pacific and Americas. Natixis has approximately 22000

employees in around 68 countries.

Since Natixis is a large organization, to run it there has to be a proper way of

governing it. It has to abide all the legal obligations pertaining to each

individual country or place it operates in. It has certain specialized

committees namely Appointment and compensation committees, Audit

committee and Strategic committee. All these committee helps in providing

feasible solution in the organising which helps in the decision making process.

Natixis as an organization provides a varieties of services in the form of

sponsorships, Scholarships, Grants and other prizes. Some of them worth

mentioning are sponsorship of the Rugby team “Racing Metro 92”, Prize for

best Master thesis in Quantitative Finance, PhD. Thesis Scholarship and

Research Grants etc.

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NATIXIS (Global presence)

Darker areas indicate presence of Natixis.

*Map data courtesy of Natixis website

*Map data courtesy of Natixis website

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Brief history of Natixis

* Data acquired from Natixis website

1818 • Creation of Caisse d'Epargne bank

1837 • Caisse d'Epargne grows from 284 to 364

1878 • Creation of Banque Populaire

1919 • Creation of Credit National

1921 • Creation of Caisse Centrale des Banques Populaires (CCBP)

1946 • Creation of Banque Francaise du Commerce Exterieur (BPCE)

1996 • Creation of Natexis S.A

1998 • CCBP buys Natexis S.A

1999 • Natexis S.A becomes Natexis Banques Populaires

2001 • Spin off of all Caisse des Depots to create CDC IXIS

2004 • Caisse Nationale des d'Epargne acquires CDC IXIS

2006 • Creation of Natixis

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Key Figures of Natixis (2012) 20,198 employees (full-time equivalent at December 31, 2012) 38.4% of employees working abroad

UNDERLYING INCOME STATEMENT (in millions of euros)

2012 2011 Net revenues* 6,452 6,553

Gross operating income* 1,513 1,854 NET INCOME (GROUP SHARE)* 1,156 1,621

GAPC, discontinued operations and restructuring costs (15) (69)

NET INCOME (GROUP SHARE) 1,141 1,552 * Excl. GAPC, discontinued operations and restructuring costs

FINANCIAL STRUCTURE 31/12/2012 31/12/2011

Tier one Ratio 13.40%* 11.30% Core Tier one Ratio 11.80%* 10.20%**

Risk Weighted Assets (in billions of euros) 115.7* 145.6 TOTAL ASSETS (in billions of euros) 528 508 Book value per share (in euros) 5.76 5.35

* Excluding treatment of CCIs as risk weighted assets (370% of their equity method value) ** including the impact of the P3CI transaction, launched on January 6, 2012

NET REVENUES BY BUSINESS DIVISION (in millions of euros) 2012 2011

Wholesale Banking 2,829 2,847 Investment solutions 2,069 1,890

Specialized Financial Services 1,188 1,138

PRE-TAX PROFIT BY BUSINESS DIVISION (in millions of euros) 2012 2011

Wholesale Banking 735 1,066 Investment solutions 519 442

Specialized Financial Services 298 289 • Data acquired from Natixis website

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Natixis Business Line Natixis emphasises on three main areas:

1. Wholesale Banking

2. Investment Solutions

3. Specialized Financial Services

Natixis areas of operations are:

1. Corporate and Investment Banking

2. Asset Management

3. Services

4. Receivables Management

5. Private Equity and Private Banking

Elaborating the three main areas of business of Natixis.

1. WHOLESALE BANKING

i. Advisory

ii. Capital Market

iii. GTB (Global Transaction Banking)

iv. Structured Finance

2. INVESTMENT SOLUTIONS

i. Asset Management

ii. Insurance

iii. Private Banking

iv. Private Equity.

*(Insurance is offered through coface, which is a Natixis subsidiary)

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Natixis Business Line

3. SPECIALIZED FINANCIAL SERVICES

i. Factoring

ii. Sureties and Guarantees

iii. Leasing

iv. Consumer Finance

v. Film Industry Finance

vi. Employee Savings Scheme

vii. Payments

viii. Securities

In order for Natixis to excel in what it does it has to have certain standard and

provide support function for the services to be provided.

All these support functions are integrated to boost the performance and to

improve coordination.

Natixis has seven integrated support functions, which are:

1. Communications

2. Compliance

3. Finance

4. Legal

5. Human Resources

6. Risks

7. Information Systems

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Natixis Business Line As we have all seen from the above information we can easily know that a

big organization needs proper classification and management. A part, which

plays an important role in proper functioning of the organization, is CRM. A

CRM application is necessary to maintain all the data and record all the

movements in the organisation. One of the tools that I used during my tenure

as a Business Analyst in Natixis is OSACT Selligent CRM tool. OSACT Selligent

was developed especially for Natixis.

First of all let us understand what CRM means before we go ahead and

discuss about the specific CRM tool (OSACT Selligent).

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CRM CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. As the name itself

suggests CRM is responsible for managing an organization’s interactions with

customers. Through the monitoring process it can assess the on-going

relationship of the organization and the customer. Implementation of CRM in

an organization can help an organization in obtaining myriads of benefits out

of which some of the important benefits are, reducing cost of the

organization, improving customer value, and smooth functioning of different

departments in an organization.

CRM also helps the organization in understanding the customers’ better which

ultimately benefits the company. It helps them understand the customers’

current need and the past need of the customers. It also helps them to

analyse the trend of the customers. In this way an organization can set up a

plan in advance based on historical facts about the customer.

As said in the above paragraph, due to the knowledge acquired by

organization about the customer through CRM an organization can keep or

eliminate customers whenever they feel fit. Since there is no point in retaining

invaluable customers an organization can eliminate them by keeping only

the valuable customers. From here we can also come to a conclusion that

CRM also helps in the crucial decision making process.

Since all types of business are customer oriented it is always important to

implement CRM in organization. Better understanding of the customer will

lead to a beneficial future of the organization.

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CRM Customer relationship management aims to Automate, Synchronise and

organise Processes of Business by using technology to attract new customers

and maintain a good reputation with the customers who are already present.

Some CRM definition from different noted authors:

“Jennifer Carnie -

Customer Systems, Inc. – 2008: Customer Relationship Management is the

philosophy that the customer should come first. Each client should feel

that they receive VIP treatment every time they speak with a

representative from your company. ”

“Brian Vellmure, principal and founder of Initium LLC/Innovantage International -

A holistic encompassing of strategy, process, and technology aimed at improving the mutual value of a customer and a company’s relationship.”

“Scott Fletcher-

CRM is an enterprise-wide mindset, mantra, and set of business processes

and policies that are designed to acquire, retain, and service customers.

Broadly speaking, CRM includes the customer facing business processes of

marketing, sales, and customer service.”

“Brent Frei -

CRM is a comprehensive set of processes and technologies for managing

the relationships with potential and current customers and business

partners across marketing, sales, and service regardless of the

communication channel.”

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CRM - Benefits The actual worth of a company lies in the value they create for their

customers and in the value the customers transport back to the company.

Accordingly, it is important to mark that the value does not lie in more

information and in more advanced technology. The value lies in the customer

knowledge and in how the companies use that knowledge to manage their

customer relationships. Knowledge is the sole of CRM according to Frederick

Newell (2000).

On the contrary, only few businesses are converting the information to

consumer knowledge and hence they slip the chance to deliver value to their

customer. But if pertained in the accurate way, CRM is the tool that

contributes to profit. If companies are changing the customer data into

knowledge and then uses that knowledge to build relationships it will create

loyalty, followed by profits. Benefits are listed below (Newell, 2000).

1. Lower cost of recruiting customers.

2. No need to recruit so many customers to preserve a steady volume of

business.

3. Reduced Costs of sales.

4. Higher customer Profitability.

5. Increased customer retention and loyalty.

6. Evaluation of customer profitability.

Source: Newell, Frederick (2000), Loyalty.com: Customer relationship management in the new era of Internet marketing.

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CRM graphical representation

CRM

Support

Loyalty

History

CRM report

creation

Communications

Collecting receivables

Knowledge Management

Opportunity

Campaign

Lead

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My role in Natixis My role in Natixis was that of a Business Analyst which in French is known as

Maitrise D’ouvrage. I worked as a Business Analyst for CRM application, which

is known as OSACT Selligent. We were a team of 4 people working as a

medium between end users and the technical team of the application. As a

mediator or a medium between the two we had a lot of responsibility.

Responsibilities like understanding the end users need and reporting it to the

technical team to convert the user requirement.

During this process it was required for us to have vast knowledge of different

applications. Applications like SAP Business Object, Microsoft Outlook, Lotus

Notes etc. and many other proprietary applications of the firm.

The link between all these applications, which was utilized during my tenure,

will be discussed later in the following chapters.

We, as a Business Analyst for the specific CRM application are responsible for

bringing productive changes to the CRM application with each revised

version.

Tools utilized during my role as a Business Analyst are as follows:

• OSACT Selligent

• SAP Business Objects

• Microsoft Outlook

• Lotus Notes

• BOA

• UFO

• Microsoft Excel (Spread sheet, macros)

• Microsoft Word

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OSACT Selligent

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Internet

Explorer

SAP Business Object

Pivotal CRM

Safram

BOA

Apollo

Anafi

MS Outlook

RPG

Artemis

UFO

OSACT Selligent (Cartography)

Natixis User

Reporting Contacts, meetings

Email, meetings

Deals

Synchronization

Portal

OSACT Selligent

Client Reference

Portal Financial Data

Portfolios Natixis User data, status

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OSACT Selligent and its functions Osact Selligent as a CRM tool has many varieties of functions that are equally

important. Some of the functions are frequently used and some are not. From

time to time the functions being used are different depending on the user. It

depends on the access rights that are being provided to the user at the time

of arrival to NATIXIS. Some examples of different access rights are provided

below.

• DEFI Business Line Administrator

• COVERAGE Consultant

• DEFI Consultant

• COVERAGE Contributor

• DEFI Contributor

• COVERAGE Assistant

• DEFI Assistant

• COVERAGE Marketing

• DEFI Business Monitoring

• COVERAGE Business & Financial Steering

Depending on the access right certain part of the tool will be visible to certain

user. For example a COVERAGE Consultant can only view a meeting that is

being synchronized from Microsoft Outlook to OSACT. The user will be

restricted from making any changes to the meeting that is already

synchronized. In another example a COVERAGE Assistant can view a meeting

and also make certain changes if desired to do so to a meeting that is

already synchronized to OSACT from outlook or a meeting that was solely

created In OSACT.

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OSACT Selligent Access Rights

• DEFI Business Line Administrator

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X Create X X X X

Update X X X X X

Delete X X X

• COVERAGE Consultant

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X

Create

Update Delete

• DEFI Consultant

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X

Create Update

Delete

(Note: X in the tables mean, access granted)

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• COVERAGE Contributor

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X Create X X X

Update X X X X X

Delete X X

• DEFI Contributor

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X

Create X X X

Update X X X X X Delete X X

• COVERAGE Assistant

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X

Create X X

Update X X X X X Delete X

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• DEFI Assistant

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X Create X X

Update X X X X X

Delete X

• COVERAGE Marketing

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X Create X

Update X X X

Delete X

• DEFI Business Monitoring

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X

Create X X X

Update X X X X Delete X X X

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• COVERAGE Business & Financial Steering

Clie

nt

Pers

on

Ac

tion

De

al

Ass

oc

iate

Access X X X X X

Create

Update X Delete

(Note: X in the table means, access granted)

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OSACT Selligent and its tabs In the previous page we have already discussed the different type of users of

the CRM tool OSACT. Now we will discuss the many different function

included in the tool OSACT and elaborate some important functions for better

understanding. In OSACT Selligent the main important parts are the tabs that

are present on the upper part of the screen. To name a few:

• Dashboard

• Client

• Person

• Action

• Deal

• Natixis Associate

• Organizer

All the parts that are being laid out have it’s own importance and

significance. Usage of these tabs will depend on the user requirements and

the role of the user in the organization. For example a DEFI user may use the

tab “Deal” tab more than a Coverage user. This is so, since the user works

different sets of area of the organization.

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Dashboard (OSACT Selligent)

Dashboard is the default page that will open on first login into OSACT Selligent.

The dashboard will display different information depending on the user

access and the type of department (Coverage, DEFI or GSAF etc.) a user

works. The screenshot displayed is that of a user from Coverage. The

screenshot is self-explanatory, for example the first clickable place under the

many different tabs is “Synchronization Outlook”, if a user happens to click on

this button a manual synchronization between OSACT and user’s outlook will

happen. During this synchronization any new data will be synchronized. But

out of all the different set of information displayed here the most important of

them all in a dashboard is the brief summary which is being displayed “My

future meetings”, “My reports to be done” and “My deal pipe”. All the

information will be displayed here. (Information is not being displayed in the

screenshot since it is taken from the testing environment).

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Client (OSACT Selligent)

This is one of the many important tabs that OSACT Selligent has. Vital

information is being entered through this tab. Client also can be called

Customer. In this client tab vital information of the organization that is in

business with Natixis are entered. This information that are being entered will

be used in many places and references for future. This tab can also be used

for pulling up information for references. The information will be displayed in

an exhaustive manner. A user can find all sorts of information of the client on

this page. As we can see from the screenshot, information like client details,

Client Relationship Manager, Group Relationship Manager, Client Service

team can be shown through this tab. Apart from this information; a user can

also see the historic detail and business relation with Natixis. Some other

important thing to take notice when looking up for a client is also the status

field. This field will let a user know about the current business relation of the

client with Natixis. If this field displays as inactive then the client is no longer a

client of Natixis. Through this process a user can start looking up for a different

client immediately.

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Person (OSACT Selligent)

After the client tab comes the person tab. This tab is basically dedicated for

the client representative that is currently in business with Natixis. Information

about the client representative or person is fed into this tab. Information

ranging from name to contact details can be found here. This information is

mostly sourced from outlook contact details of the Natixis users. Or the other

way around that is to feed the information manually into OSACT Selligent.

Before saving the information one has to check that it is linked to the correct

client. There is no need for creating a new client; a user has to look up for the

client name, in case it already exists in the database. If the client is not yet in

the database then it has to be created freshly. Once saved, the information

should be linked to the contact details. Like the procedure or functionality of

the other tabs, here in this tab we can view the information any time and use

it for cross-referencing. Apart from this basic information other information like

deals pertaining to the particular client and person can also be viewed from

this tab. This information is displayed in the lower section of the screen. A brief

relationship history can also be seen from the very same page.

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Action (OSACT Selligent)

The meetings that have occurred and that are to be held in the coming

future between the client representative and a Natixis Associate can be

viewed from this tab. One important feature that is available on this tab is the

confidentiality click that is situated just under “Synchronization Outlook”. This

small click can make a lot of difference in the meeting that will be fed into

OSACT. In case a Natixis user chooses to select the confidential meeting, it will

not be displayed in the marketing calendar that will be circulated among the

senior bankers of Natixis. As we have already discussed that this tab is for all

the meetings. The source for the information of these meetings is either from

the OSACT Calendar of the Natixis user or being manually entered into OSACT

Selligent. Once the meeting is synchronized into OSACT and it is a non-

confidential meeting then all the user of OSACT Selligent can see this meeting

through a simple search string. The agenda for meeting or other important

notice can be attached in this tab in the form of a document.

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Deal (OSACT Selligent)

The Deal tab is responsible for storing all the deal information of Natixis with its

Clients. The information that are being displayed here are also exhaustive

depending on their Business Line. The deals are being divided into Coverage

Deals and SAF Deals formerly known as DEFI Deals. Many field are available

for feeding. Some are basic and understandable by everyone and some are

not. The fields that are not understandable by everyone are the fields that are

based on specific area of expertise like finance etc. Layman terms like “Deal

Importance”, “Confidentiality” can be guessed by anyone. Deal importance

is for how valuable the deal is for Natixis. This field helps Natixis in realising its

goal and ultimately helps in planning ahead for the future.

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Natixis Associate (OSACT Selligent)

This is the page where all the information of all the Natixis Associate goes

whether active or inactive. Important information like name, contact number,

email address, direct line and the location of the branch an associate is

working in. From this section any associate in Natixis who is a user can search

for other users by using their RACF ID or the name in case a user happens to

know it. Many other important data are also linked with this page. Some of

the important information linked is:

• Portfolio

• Action (Meetings of the particular Associate)

• Deal (Deals of the Associate)

• Associates Team

• Who’s who

• Former UFO (former department of Associate)

By keeping all this information linked to the same page it makes it easier for a

user to track all the movements and statuses of the meeting etc.

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Responsibilities of Business Analyst Being a Business Analyst for a CRM comes loaded with a lot of important

responsibilities. Some responsibilities have been discussed briefly before. Here,

lets discuss about of the main responsibilities that I had to undertake during

my tenure as a Business Analyst. My main responsibilities ranged from sending

reports to senior bankers, providing verbal assistance or support for the usage

of the tool, maintenance of the active and inactive users, checking of

redundant information in the tool, checking for bug in the tool, creation of

new user access etc.

When it comes to checking of bug in the tool, it is very dangerous to fiddle

around with the tool that is already in the live environment. In order to tackle

this obstacle we use the QUALIF environment that is also called the testing

environment.

Some of the main responsibilities are listed below:

• Migration of tool version. (Assistance)

• Checking for bug (Creation of greens in Lotus Notes)

• Creation of new user

• Creation of reports (SAP Business Objects)

• Deactivation of inactive user

• Checking OSACT to Outlook Synchronization

• Constant communication with technical team

• Collecting user requirements

• Analyzing feasibility of the requirements

• Converting the user requirements into understandable technical terms

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Migration of version Before upgrading the version of the tool there are certain procedures that

should be followed. Steps like, posting a notification for all the user to see, or

a notice that should be sent to all the users of the tool, highlighting the

changes that are being made in the tool, preparation of a new user guide if

needed etc. Here we will lay down an example from the tool OSACT Selligent.

The pictorial representations of the changes that are being laid out in the

following examples are screenshots of the actual functioning tool. By

following these procedures there are benefits of both the user and the

support team. The main benefit of this procedure is that the user can pick up

the guide and understand the changes without having to consult the support

team of the tool. The user guide should be made in such a way that even a

layman can understand it at first glance.

Old Dashboard New Dashboard

The navigation pane has Dashboard icon has been removed Manual Synchronization The navigation pane’s with been

moved OUTLOOK made easier menus are now accessible via tabs

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Migration of version

Old Menu New Menu

Old Action Screen New Action Screen

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Checking for bug

Above in the screenshot we can notice that the highlighted information does

not match. The screenshot below is the extracted report from the tool. The

deal members should be the list of names as seen in the first screenshot and

not “CHAUTAGNAT Philippe” repeatedly. As a Business Analyst, we have the

responsibility of checking for this kind of bugs in tool from time to time and

report it to the technical team.

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Creation of new User When a new employee arrives at Natixis, the employee is ruled out whether

he/she needs a user access to OSACT Selligent. In case a user needs access

to the tool, first thing to do is to create a RACF ID for the user, after the RACF

ID has been created the next step to do is to find out the department and

location of the intended OSACT Selligent user. We do this by finding out the

person who is in the higher hierarchy to the intended OSACT user. After

determining this information the new intended user is provided with a suitable

UFO/Business Unit.

We send a mail to the concerned department for the UFO creation for the

user. After the creation of all this requirements, we have to wait for 24 hr. for

the synchronization. The next day if the synchronization has been proper, the

data would have been already present in the tool. After this particular step

the most important thing to determine is the type of user access for the user.

User access like Coverage Assistant, DEFI Contributor etc. are provided

depending on the need. When every step has been verified and checked

one last thing to do is to mail the technical team for the activation of the user

account. The account activation will not take much time. After the

confirmation of the account activation we inform the user about the

activation and give them training on the usage of the tool. The duration of

the training session may depending on the user.

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Creation of reports (SAP BO)

The meetings or planning created by the user are all synchronized into SAP

Business Objects and can be extracted later on the user who has proper

access rights to Business Objects. In the new version of the tool, an extraction

button for report has been included. An alternative way to do so will be to

access Business Objects directly.

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OSACT – SAP BO Synchronization

The synchronization process like in OSACT – Outlook synchronization takes

place at regular intervals. But here in this process the synchronization will only

be for all the planning. This is necessary to keep track of all the client meetings.

The main advantage of this process is, the extraction can be done on various

number of parameters such as user, location or specific string which the users

desires to punch in. The extracted result will be in excel spreadsheet format so

there is also another option of grouping or classifying it based on the users

requirement.

OSACT

Synchronisation one way only

from OSACT to SAP BO

SAP BO

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OSACT – SAP BO Synchronization One example of extraction of reports from Business Objects is shown below.

Here we can clearly see that the extraction is done based on the Natixis user.

We can see that the meetings are being based on one specific user, but the

participants are different depending on the meeting.

*Extracted report from Business Objects Web Intelligence.

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OSACT – Outlook Synchronization

The synchronization is done on a regular basis to keep all the contacts and

information updated. The user enters contacts, meeting and emails in outlook,

but the OSACT – Outlook synchronization works for CONTACTS and MEETINGS.

In the same manner the contacts or meetings also can be entered manually

into OSACT. In another case In spite of waiting for automatic synchronization,

a user can also proceed ahead with a manual synchronization so that the

data is synchronized then and there.

Email, Meeting, Contacts Contacts, Planning

Synchronization

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2013


Obstacles of a Business Analyst During my internship as a Business Analyst in Natixis, I came across several

obstacles and difficulties at the initial point of the internship. All these

obstacles were solvable or could be surpassed as we mature through time

and experience. Some of the main obstacles that I faced are:

• Language Barrier

• Working environment

• Familiarity with the tools utilized

• Understanding the rapidly changing trends

To elaborate on the points mentioned above we need to understand that the

obstacles faced during the tenure of my internship were only at the beginning

of the internship. It was all surpassed after a few weeks.

• Language Barrier

Involving ourselves in a foreign country where the language you speak is not

the first language of the country you decide to involve yourself in can be a

big issue. It can create more problems that what we imagine. we might be an

expert but, language barrier can make a huge impact in the performance. It

can reduce the productivity of our work. First thing to note here is that, as a

business analyst we need to understand the need od the customer

completely. Without understanding the needs there is no way that we can

proceed further and provide good result. Being an expert in our own line work

doesn’t help in this kind of situation. We need to be well aware of the situation

that we are likely to face and be prepared for it. Not knowing the local

language is almost like being handicapped where you wont be satisfied with

what you do because you just know that the result is not your best.

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Obstacles of a Business Analyst

• Working Environment

Working in a new Organization where you are not familiar with the

environment, the people and the work culture also make some difference

initially. This takes some time getting used to. It might depend from people to

people, personality of person as well. If a person is an extrovert he/she might

hit it off well for a starter. The way of getting work done might be different

from the previous experiences. So we need to understand that it is not the

same everywhere.

• Familiarity with the tools utilized

Different organization use different tools even it might be of same sector.

Some of them might even be proprietary. In general some of the tools might

be common but it is a written fact that there will be some tools that you will

have to get familiar with. We should be open to learning new things and

open to suggestion if we want to make progress in our career. Proprietary tool

I used was OSACT Selligent for which I was provided with a basic training at

the beginning.

• Understanding the rapidly changing trends

Due to the changing needs of the customers, the trends in market changes

fro time to time. This is a direct effect due to the needs of the customers. If we

take an example from my own internship, the tool OSACT Selligent evolved a

lot during my 6 months tenure in Natixis. The users of the tool wanted specific

information to be added in several places, which was due to the need of the

customers. Several new functionalities were added in the tool that was not

present previously.

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2013


Obstacles of a Business Analyst According to a survey conducted by “Business Improvements Architects” in

2005 shown below are statistical data excerpt from their website. Some

important challenging factors which needs to be understood that they laid

out for ensuring greater success are:

• Lack of Clarity in the Scope of the Business Functions

• Business Requirements Not Well-Managed

• Conflict Between Business Groups

• Not Bringing in Business Analysts in Sufficient Time

Source: http://www.bia.ca/articles/TheTopChallengesFacingBusinessAnalysts.htm

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References

• Jennifer Carnie, Customer Systems, Inc – 2008. www.customersystemsinc.com

• Newell, Frederick (2000), Loyalty.com: Customer relationship management in the new era of Internet marketing, McGraw-Hill Publication, New York

• www.natixis.com

• www.marketingsherpa.com

• www.cinterviews.com

• Business Improvements Architects www.bia.ca

growing importance of crm

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