The situation

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund (www.nzsuperfund.co.nz) invests money, on behalf of the Government, to help pay for the increased cost of superannuation entitlements in the future. By doing this the Fund adds to Crown wealth, improves the ability of future Governments to pay for National Superannuation, and ultimately reduces the tax burden on future New Zealanders of the cost of superannuation. With investment manager and partner information stored across a number of locations, it was difficult for New Zealand Superannuation Fund to capture a relationship as a whole. A new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution that could integrate all information and that was accessible to not only the person directly involved but others working with that relationship was a necessity for the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. As Mark Dromgoole, Senior Business Analyst, New Zealand Superannuation Fund says:

“Our goal is to create a 360° view of our relationship with our investment managers and partners. They all play an important role in the investment decisions we make for New Zealanders, and making sure we can easily find everything, from investment and financial documents to upcoming meetings and activities with them, is key.”

The pain

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund were using a SharePoint-based CRM System, Microsoft Outlook and eDocs to store their client, investment and partner information. This made it difficult for staff to see in real-time, a full picture of any one relationship across the business. And with staff members organisation-wide having contact at different times for different reasons, it was difficult to create a transparent, aggregate view of all their communications relevant to a particular relationship. As Mark explains:

“We don’t want our teams tripping over each other; our relationships with our investment managers and partners are extremely valuable. Making sure all staff are on the same plane and know exactly what’s going on is essential. We needed structure around information gathering. Microsoft Dynamics CRM was more than capable of doing this and could integrate with other important data sources to build a 360° view of a relationship.”

The gain

With Microsoft Dynamics CRM implemented and integrated with Microsoft Outlook and eDocs, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund can now see their relationships in real time, and from all angles. Mark concludes:

“Staff from our investment and operations teams, to our finance and IT team have all embraced IRM. It’s easy to use and everyone can see all activity, from important investment documents, meetings, and activities with the external stakeholders they work with on a daily basis. The record wall that we initially didn’t think would be widely used has formed a life of its own and staff are tagging important information against investment managers and partners. It’s been a real pleasure to see it take off and the benefits are already evident, of seeing the whole picture.”