Colm Heffernan
Chief Operating Officer

Colm Heffernan, Fenergo’s Chief Operating Officer, recently spoke with Finextra about successfully implementing best practice Client Lifecycle Management (CLM) programs.

Implementing a Client Lifecycle Management program is strategically important. However, it is one that spans many different stakeholders across the business, bringing with it many obstacles and challenges to a streamlined implementation process. Having implemented CLM for 60+ financial institutions across the world, there are six key pieces of advice that I’d give to any bank or asset manager looking to implement a global and standardized approach to Client Lifecycle Management.

1. Achieve a Common Global Compliance Policy

Don’t start with implementation until you’ve achieved global alignment on common global compliance policy. Admittedly, it’s hard work for any global financial institution operating across multiple jurisdictions to get to that level of standardization. However, the work is critical in getting to a common standard and enabling you to identify the jurisdictional differences. Having taken this time upfront, you can focus on building a common policy across KYC and onboarding that takes into account 80-85% of requirements, and then identify the differences for each incremental jurisdiction when you’re ready to roll-out the solution.

2.    Define Your Target Operating Model

Take the time to define your target operating model. This will involve outlining the vision of what you want to achieve and the challenges you want to solve as an organization and answer the question: what does good look like for us? Typically, implementing a global solution for the first time is about defining the workflows in the business process and determining where the work is going to be done, where the approvals will happen and so on.

3.    Put Appropriate Resources in Place

If you want to implement an ambitious program of implementing global CLM, you need dedicated resources. So, identify the teams in your IT function who will put the infrastructure in place. Decide who the product owner will be – the person who can prioritize decisions as you implement those common standards. With these resources in place, you’ll benefit from a better-managed implementation.

4.   Collaborate & Learn

We see CLM as a common challenge for financial institutions right across the industry. It doesn’t differentiate and it’s non-competitive. So, you can take advantage of the opportunity to partner with other banks to understand how to use a common framework to your advantage. We believe Fenergo has the industry standard in our CLM solution. We’d recommend you adopt the industry standard, and then stick to it. We strongly recommend our clients use only the out-of-the-box product, use the best practice learnings within the solution and avoid the temptation to repeat what’s historically been done manually.

5.   Ongoing Education & Training for Resources

In a rapidly changing environment such as this, financial institutions need to support their teams and resources by educating them about the latest trends, technologies and processes in CLM and regulatory compliance. This is what Fenergo University is all about. Through this facility, we educate and train over 2,000 people per year in both our client and partner organizations with a curriculum that’s focused on the industry challenges and teach the tenets of how to manage regulation within our industry. Our clients also learn about Fenergo’s products, how to implement and configure them from a technical perspective and how to make use of the application from a user perspective. Fenergo University is fast improving capability within the industry, giving our clients’ and partners’ teams the skills and knowledge to implement Fenergo and build expertise through our advanced programs.

6.   Understand the Importance of Strategic Implementation Partnerships

Strategic alliances and partnerships are critical to our success. As well as the alliances we have with complementary technology partners, we’ve recently focused on building alliances with partners like Accenture, Wipro and Genpact. For us, the key is to focus on the client. So that means looking at our clients, speaking to them and seeking their input in terms of who their partners are. Knowing and working with those partners means that together we can make our clients more successful by helping them adopt Fenergo successfully and, in turn, help them achieve their bigger business goals.