In Financial Services, many companies prefer to keep client information locked tight in-house to guarantee complete protection. This legacy thinking is with significant justification. Those who let personally identifiable client data slip face massive loss of reputation, loss of clients, plus punitive fines and lawsuits.

Being relatively new, cloud computing services, including cloud CRM, are a natural object of distrust. And there are many myths about their safety – which we’ve busted in a previous article.

Today, it’s widely recognized cloud CRM, from a proven vendor and properly configured, can provide Financial Advisors plenty of benefits, plus unparalleled security. That includes secure cloud storage for all your client records and documents, at a predictable and affordable price.

Nevertheless, to ensure due diligence, you’ll want to follow best practices, including asking your vendor pointed questions about their level of security before getting into a committed relationship.

Here are some key considerations to help you pick the right vendor and foolproof your CRM against security breaches and malicious attacks.

3 top considerations when picking a vendor

First, you’ll want to ensure your vendor provides only the best security guarantees. Some guidelines to inform your assessment of your vendor’s data center are as follows:

1.      First, check your Financial CRM vendor’s data center “tier rating”. The Uptime Institute is responsible for setting these standards, now embraced by over 1,000 data centers world-wide as a way of demonstrating data center security and disaster preparedness.

Tier IV certified centers are the best on offer and include proven safeguards such as 24/7 intrusion detection monitoring, certified third party penetration testing, daily backups and off-site server redundancy. By going with a cloud vendor, you can often acquire these enterprise-level security features, at a fraction of what they might cost to build and maintain in-house.

2.   Look to see whether they are PCI compliant. These are same standards used to ensure safety of credit-card holder information at every step. While intended primarily for ecommerce, they also serve as a proof your vendor follows robust network security monitoring and encryption, so you can confidently access sensitive client information over the internet.
3.   Check for other trusted quality certifications. For example, at Maximizer, we ensure ISO 9001 and 27001 certification. These serve as a proven way of demonstrating that the organization actively manages data security in alignment with international best practice, including the European Union’s recently enforced anti-spam data protection law – GDPR.

3 ways to configure your CRM for foolproof security

Cloud CRM can serve as a convenient way to store your reams of paperwork and client information. For example, we provide our cloud customers 75 gigabytes of cloud storage part and parcel with their all-in-one subscription – providing space for tens of thousands of documents and records -- accessible from any internet browser.

Still, just because your vendor stores your records in a world-class data center, including rock-solid backups and encryption, doesn’t mean you’re fully protected. As the old adage goes, “a fool with a tool is still a fool.”

In any organization, your security is only as strong as your weakest link; and often, that weak link is a naïve and or improperly trained staff member.

There are several CRM security best practices you’ll need to ensure are followed consistently by your crew. Also consider picking a financial CRM with multi-level security controls, to address concerns about employees viewing, editing or removing data they’re not supposed to.

These  multi-level controls should include...

1.      Export privileges:  Client information exported from your CRM into an Excel sheet, could represent a serious security risk – especially if stored on an easily-stolen laptop or flash stick. Gating export privileges will ensure your client information never leaves your cloud CRM except under controlled circumstances.
2.      Data capture field controls: Sometimes, a staff member needs to see client information, but you want to block changes. With data capture field control, you can specify particular read and edit privileges on individual data capture fields.
3.      Role-based access privileges: Finally, and most importantly,  a CRM with role-based security privileges will enable you to specify access rights on individual records, features and modules. By setting up Super Users with full administrative rights, you can also delegate oversight to key individuals like your compliance officer.
   

The bottom line

As a financial services company, your client data security is your top priority. And by taking proactive steps, including choosing the right vendor and implementing proper configuration, you can enjoy all the advantages cloud CRM offers, while resting confident in the fact that your data is protected against accidental leaks, disasters or malicious attacks.

In many sales organisations, a few top performers tend to totally crush their numbers. While others struggle just to hit quota.

To boost overall performance, companies invest heavily in sales enablement -- tools and training designed to help each salesperson up their game. However, according to conclusions  from CSO Insights, the research arm of sales and service solutions provider Miller Heiman Group, many companies may not be targeting their enablement spend effectively.

In the UK, Maximizer is a proud sponsor of a series of prominent regional business expos and at the most recent one – on our doorstep here in Berkshire – I had the pleasure of holding a free workshop for delegates alongside my colleague Diego Lunardi, our Head of Sales.

Until recently, advisor-client relationships followed a stable template: each would meet once a year and catch up on portfolio performance. After, they might chat about buying a new product. And that was it.

Avid QuoteWerks users rejoice. We’re proud to announce a brand new integration with the market-leading sales quoting and proposal software. Now sales teams will be able to accelerate their productivity and close deals like never before.

Once again, Salesforce brings home the bacon. The company recently announced a whopping $3.01 billion for its FY2019 Q1 results. With anticipated 25% growth over last year’s numbers, Salesforce is on track to extend its multi-year winning streak deep into the black.

The radical shift to Software as a Service (SaaS) continues apace. Forrester Research expects cloud CRM will become the single most common deployment model for CRM within five years, with newer SaaS solutions replacing most on-premise installations.

Slated to go into full effect on May 25, GDPR brings sweeping changes to European Union anti-spam and privacy rules. And now many North American companies, with customers and employees in the EU, are racing to get up to speed.

Gut-instinct alone is not enough. Effective decision-making also requires hard factual intelligence. Which is why millions of businesses strive to become data-driven organizations.

According to 2017 research by TDWI, organizations are making real progress -- but there remain notable obstacles. A third of survey respondents still believe they’re not close to being data-driven. The biggest reported barriers? Leadership, technology and skills. And also bad data quality, which according to Gartner, causes 40% of business initiatives to fail to realize their targeted benefits.

Before you can maximize insights from Business Intelligence and Analytics, you need to ensure your teams have confidence in your customer data. And that demands ensuring consistent data capture management practices are in place.

EMCORE is a boutique asset management company based in Switzerland. It is a pioneer in asymmetric risk-return investment strategies, providing tailor-made and yield-orientated risk and asset management solutions to institutional investors on a long-term basis.

The company is very proud of the financial expertise, loyal client base and core values that it has fostered over the last twenty years.  However, EMCORE’s owners recognise the growing importance of embracing new ideas, techniques and technologies that will enable their business to flourish into the next decade. This is especially true in the area of relationship management.

The debate over the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of cloud vs. on –premise software choices is still a hot topic. Pundits debate the merits of renting vs. owning. But complicated questions like quantifying the long-term costs of IT management, plus the intangibles (uncertainties like downtime) – can make comparing the two a bit like apples to oranges.

We wanted to confirm for ourselves what the advantages of a Cloud CRM vs. an On-premise installation – and here’s what the experts had to say:

In the age of the customer, people demand personalized care and high quality digital experiences. Businesses that want to stay competitive thus look for ways to deliver outstanding service time and time again -- which requires getting their teams on the same page.

However, according to Forrester, that’s often easier said than done. Improvement requires strong alignment, which can be next to impossible with processes and data fragmented across multiple systems.

This week we launched enhancements to your Maximizer bound to make your experience even more personalized. Chief among those is the new Custom Tab for your Address Book.

With GDPR set to go into force next month, promising sweeping changes to Europe’s privacy laws, organizations are shifting their compliance efforts into top gear.

When it comes to strategies for acquiring new clients, expensive marketing and advertising might spring to mind. But before you start frantically plastering your name on the side of every bus in your neighbourhood, maybe step back and consider alternatives. Here are some sure-fire strategies bound to boost your bottom line without breaking your bank.