Gemma Livermore: Welcome to another episode of Seismic Sessions today, where we’re going to explore the latest strategies and innovations in the world of private banking. I’m Gemma Livermore, Head of International FS Marketing at Seismic, and today I’m joined, as always, by Rachael.
Rachael Rowe: Hi, Gemma. Lovely to be here. I’m RVP at Seismic, for financial services. And today we have two distinguished guests with us, Morgane Keo Kosal, Head of IT Business Transformation Project at Syz Group. And Gaétan Oyon, client solutions expert at Syz Group. They’ve been working on an exciting project focused on streamlining and personalising their pitch book creation process for relationship managers. And today they’re here to share insights into how this journey unfolded and what they’ve learned along the way.
Gemma Livermore: Really looking forward to this conversation. And We start each podcast with the same question, which is what does enabling private banking services mean to you? So, first of all, let’s come to you, Gaétan. What does enabling private banking services mean to you?
Gaétan Oyon: To me, enabling private banking services mean, making sure we’re able to deliver the right solution in an efficient way, throughout the organisation that will enhance their ability to, create a better kind of experience, their clients. So essentially it is making sure we’re putting the right tools, to make sure our front office is capable and, is able to, go out there, with the proper solution and.
drive prospection, drive client meetings, drive client interactions. So it’s essentially, you know, breeding the right client experience, not only with external clients, but also internally within the organisation.
Gemma Livermore: Excellent answer. And Morgane, what about yourself?
Morgane Keo Kosal: So on my side, I agree with, what, Gaétan saying as well. but, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s also getting to know our clients as well. understand what we need to provide them and improve the content and product offering. so we just need to find the right balance between, keeping, something that is quite easy to use for them and also for the bankers, uh, and also, making our processes, uh, efficient.
Gemma Livermore: Yeah, and I see efficiency coming up a lot in this space. Yes.
Rachael Rowe: And I think Gemma, this, this will be a really interesting conversation for all of our listeners involved within the private banking industry, because we, we hear a lot of these similar kind of topics emerging.
Gemma Livermore: Definitely. and we’re going to now head to our tremors as our regular listeners know, we theme our podcasts in the earthquake theme. So we look back at how things used to be at the tremors, how things are now at the epicentre. And then last, my favorite part of the session, which is where we look to the future and what we think the aftershocks will be like.
So let’s look back at how things were before you began your enablement journey. So I know that you started the task to automate pitch books to enable your client relationship managers in their roles. When you started that, did you envisage it becoming part of a broader enablement transformation or were you just looking to solve the efficiency problem in itself?
Morgane Keo Kosal: I think when we started, we did not think that it will be such a big, improvement. I mean, it will bring us so much improvement to our organisation because at first we were only looking, at, four points, solution that could bring us. support, our bankers in the content creation. So just have a good life, PowerPoint library web, solution so that they could, easily, decide what they want to, add as a content for their clients. So that was where we started, we had a solution, but we were not really happy about it. so we, we saw a lot of solution that we, we found we’ve also discussed with other, banks to see what they were using. Yeah. And then, uh, when we discovered, seismic, we realised that it could go, way farther than what we had expected. So, that’s where we started.
Gaétan Oyon: Yeah. Maybe if I, if I can jump in on this, and Morgan been together through the whole journey. So of course we, went from one stage to another, but I think. what was key to us is to make sure we were kind of pacing our effort because at first there’s always the need to respond to all the requests, make sure you’re able to deliver a solution quite quickly and then saying, I mean, thanks to seismic and thanks to the later stage of the diagnostic, stage, we were able to identify, other solutions that made us realise that first initial,
Okay. candidate was actually only meeting our basic requests. So just fulfilling our version 1 of the projects, but then. When we took a step back and we understood that this could be a much broader experience with a product that would evolve a lot alongside the organisation, we realised we really need to sort of back off and, go on with, another selection process.
And this is where we landed with, Seismic. And, I think this was key to us because otherwise, if we were only responding to the initial needs that we had identified for the front office, we would have gone with the other solutions and then 9 months later, we would have, you been fulfilling the basic need that we had without having a sort of a helicopter view of, of what this project could represent. The key was to really understand where we could go and at first we didn’t have this mindset at all, but, gladly we, we had it then.
Rachael Rowe: That’s something that we come across a lot. I think that, initially, folks will begin to look at a point solution for a challenge or a pain that they’re experiencing within their organisation and then realise that actually, There is a much broader strategy behind that, um, you know, you talked a little bit about customer orientation, personalisation being a, you know, an important, element for you. And that obviously is a business wide kind of, perspective. And I think as you’ve done here, when you start to dig into what it is you’re trying to achieve, then you start to meet the overlap with other areas of the business. So it’s, quite interesting to hear you, kind of articulate it in that way.
Gaétan Oyon: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Gemma Livermore: If we take a little bit further back beyond looking at solutions, but further back to the tremors of where the problem started, what was life like for client relationship managers in a completely pre automated world where they had to do everything themselves? What were those problems that they were facing that you had to then start to look to address?
Morgane Keo Kosal: Well, it’s still this is the case now so we are really looking forward to launch the solution. But yeah, I mean the the main problem and that’s also the biggest part that Gaétan mainly worked on uh is the content and in fact, there was two Big issue as well. the first one was that the content that was produced by the bank was a bit, everywhere.
So we had some on the intranet. We had, some that are sent by email today. And, also the, format, was, uh, really different depending on, which department was producing the content. And we were also liking some content in some area. Um, So, um, that was also a big part of the project and, we took the opportunity, to, review all the contents, like write new content, and now we are, placing it on a single platform so that it’s easy for the, bankers to find it.
Gaétan Oyon: And maybe if I can add to what Morgane has been explaining is essentially we had, you know, our relationship managers, we, we want them to be focusing on. added value activities. So we want them to be focused on on clients on creating discussions on providing investment recommendations backed by advisors.
So, we wanted them to be focused on these tasks, rather than trying to find the right content somewhere that was stored, whether it was email, share drives. intranet and then having them produce a piece of content that was in the end, maybe not the way the bank wanted, wanted this offering to be presented and communicated.
So they were essentially spending a lot of time building a bespoke content with their proper ideas of this content and how to interpret it rather than You know, focusing on talking to clients essentially. So, as Morgane said, it was kind of all over the place. And, thanks to this solution, we were very much hoping that, with a few clicks, be able to find the right content that we have shaped for them and deliver it, in an efficient way to, to the, clients and prospects.
Rachael Rowe: Yeah, that that’s really helpful to kind of understand how you move that forward. And I think with any technology change, you know, we come back to that age old triangle of people, processes and technology and If you were to look at the early stage of this project, what were some of the unexpected challenges that you encountered? So thinking in particular of things like driving adoption of new technology or changing behaviours or processes, and, and, Maybe for the audience, it’d be interesting to understand how you, how you’ve overcome them as well.
Gaétan Oyon: Well, Morgane, if I may, I think, she has much more experience, within the organisation to talk about how technology changes has, has affected the, the organisation, over the past years. But for seismic, I think, the unexpected challenges was, well, let’s say change, Basically telling people that, the way that they’re doing things, we can improve it. So I think, it’s quite complicated to, to tell someone that you have a better way of doing what he’s been doing for a while. So I think, you know, related to data related to content. And here we’re talking about specific product or investment content, which you’re not the owner of, but you’re still telling someone, that there’s a better way to do it and we can provide a solution to make it more efficient, to make it more easy to understand, that will in the end, you know, value what he’s been working on and, and we’ll be able to deliver it to, to broader audience.
So there’s scalability as well. I think. The whole change management part is, it’s quite touchy, but I think with the right sponsorship and with the right approach, you can overcome it. and I think for now, things are going pretty smoothly and I think it was key for us to, to, make sure people understand we’re putting on, the same rope and in the end, it’s going to benefit them and we will just back off and, and we would have delivered the project while they would be benefiting from it, for the, for the upcoming years.
Rachael Rowe: Yeah, that’s so true. I think when folks start to see how different their working lives are, how much easier their workflow is, that, that kind of helps you, I think, in, in terms of landing what, what you’re trying to achieve.
Morgane Keo Kosal: I mean, today when they send content to their clients, they’re totally blind, so they don’t see what has been read. They don’t see, if they even open the email, so unless the clients call us back. They won’t see anything like that. So the change management is coming so it’s going to be in september but it’s going to be an interesting phase I think for us because I mean even if people have difficulties to get used to the tool. I think the fact that now they can analytics on what their currencies, will, make them want to use, it more and more
Gaétan Oyon: and maybe if I may add another thing, one of the challenges is when you come up with a solution, there’s always a personal use case of someone that will tell you, oh, these are my needs. I would have wanted it this way. Can you do this? Can you do that? So, we’re coming back to one of your initial questions about how we, we came up with the solution, what we were trying to, to solve as, as, as a problem.
And, I think with this solution, it’s amazing that you can offer a product that has milestones, a proper roadmap of how it’s going to, evolve. And when you’re driving discussions. And when you’re presenting the solution, it’s, it’s important also for us to be able to say, look, maybe this is your use case.
We’re trying to solve first our. Initial problems with this projects, but we understand you. We know we know what you want. And on top of it, we know we have the right solution to answer your problems, but maybe at a later stage. So I think this was one of our challenges when we’re driving discussions is, you know, make sure we’re able to. to answer to everybody’s requests. And I think so far so good. whoever came up with a specific need, uh, we were either able to tell them, look, it’s coming, or we’re sure that with this proper solution, we’ll be able to, to, to answer, any of your, of your, requests.
Gemma Livermore: I think that’s a really good way to strategise it. And it’s clear that, you know, as we look back at the tremors, that your initial focus was on solving specific challenges as Rachael a lot in the private banking space. As we move into the epicentre I’d really like to explore So we’re going to explore how that project evolved and where things stand today.
So perhaps if we can start opening up how you evolved from simply automating pitch books to creating a centralised source of truth for your teams so that everything was kept in one place. for ease of access and so on. So Morgane, as the project progressed, how did the focus shift from automating pitch books to creating that single source of truth for all of your contents?
Morgane Keo Kosal: So, I mean, the need to have a single platform was always, it was always the case. centralising the, the content was always the case. but now that we see the platform, we get a new request and also ideas of what we want to add to the tool in the future. and so I can, uh, on service this part.
So, on this, we add, for example, a request on. So now, you know, the, the, the banker, they are able to send the content, but then they now are asking if, in the future, like their clients will be able also to subscribe to some of the content and we’ll be able to automatise, uh, some of the emails that are sent, so for example, if a client’s, is interested by one team, be able to subscribe and receive the content automatically. So that’s one of the things that they are requesting now. And, also, we want to keep, automating our content. So, so far now we, we are working on some automatisation, but, there are more. So that, would be one improvement that we’d make also in the future. and another thing is, adding some, distribution rules to the platform. So for now, we’ve done a, a first version, but I think there are more things that we, we can add. And, even when people start using the platform and using the pitch tool, we might want to, I mean, we will get more feedback as well and be able to, uh, to get some, um, additional improvements while they using it.
And I, I think that’s also the beauty of the solution is that, in the process, Gaétan and I have been trained. Um, how to update the content, how to update the landing pages, et cetera, what we can do, what we can not do. And, I think that’s quite interesting because, with the way we were on boarded, we know that we are quite, independent in the way we can, customise the platform. so it’s also, easy for us, to answer to, uh, the feedbacks quite, easily. I mean, there are something that we can change in two minutes. So that’s reassuring to a development phase. each time, we have feedback.
Gemma Livermore: That sounds really interesting. And, as you move forward, what. Let’s talk about the anticipated improvements that you expect to see. do you have any KPIs in place or anything that you’re looking to measure in that short term or long term goal?
Morgane Keo Kosal: So, for our parts, so on the it and, operation part, what we want to do is to measure the, efficiency again. And, we know with our current process, how much it takes to, find content. Update it and send it to, to clients and, we will measure, how much, time we gained, with the, seismic platform. So, that will be one of our KPI. Think that’s something we knew that It will be a game changer in terms of efficiency, but the platform was bringing, so much more that we did not only focus on that. but I’m really looking forward to measure that because I think we are, we are going to be really surprised by the numbers.
Gaétan Oyon: And, and, and maybe to, add to what Morgane has been saying on the IT, and sales, on the sales enabling part, and on how we’re going to drive plan discussions. It has been literally, agreed in the past days how we want to leverage all these analytics and we don’t only want to get analytics and have people individually analyse what they have been doing, what they have been sending and how, you know, captive they have been with the clients. We, we really want to create a centralised roles.
We have someone coming in that had, you know, another job descriptions, but this will be added to his role to really monitor what is going on, to make sure that we can actually, you know, make the most out of it and, on top of this efficiency on top of this, content repository, we really want to leverage the full functionality of the solution to make sure that, behind it, we can, you know, get those key KPIs to really understand what we’ve been doing well, what we’ve been delivering well, what has been of interest to our audience, internally and externally. So it’s, really a way for us to get a better sense of how we were doing things. And if we’re doing it the right way and, uh, delivering it the right way.
Rachael Rowe: Yeah, and I think that that’s really key, isn’t it? The data to understand, you know, the way forward and how you then iterate. and, I guess that’s something we’ll come on quite soon in the aftershocks. but before we go there, Gaétan, I just wanted to, circle back to the, conversation we had a little bit earlier about this kind of bias, broader strategy that, that you uncovered as, part of this. and it’d be interesting to learn how the automation of pitch books and other content has really had an impact on your relationship manager’s ability to personalise their presentations and what you found to be most beneficial to those folks.
Gaétan Oyon: So I think it’s quite an early stage for us to, to respond to this, but I’m glad that we’re able over the past week to, go dig into this new pitch book and, and already benefit from it. So I think The key impact was, people were relieved that they were not facing a blank sheet. Well, in this case, it’s a PowerPoint blank slide, and had to, you know, start, you know, building something for scratch or try to go dig into the existing content.
But, uh, it didn’t really match what they were looking for. So the, the few use cases we’ve had so far were, were amazing because just by showing them what’s available, easily accessible, it was just, you know, a few minutes of, picking and choosing what they were looking for that had been automated, and that had been created, you know, for them.
So it really enhanced both their experience, our experience and in the end, it’s going to enhance the way they will be sending this to the clients, the way they will be. You know, driving the discussion with the client. So I think, the, the automation in a way has helped a lot. The research team so far, to make their work more efficient. So they can focus on, the added value activities rather than just, you know, on, on making sure that operationally speaking, they’re meeting targets and, and they’re sending what they’re supposed to be sending on, on a weekly basis. So on one side, it was the automation at the future impact, because it, it free up a lot of time. And on the other side, what we’ve created with the pitchbooks, we were able in a, you know, in a few seconds to respond to specific, bankers need and, and come up with a tailored pitchBook, that they had preselected with us. so, so in the end, we, instead of spending hours, we, it was a few clicks, and in, in a few minutes we packaged something and it was ready to go.
Rachael Rowe: It’s evident that it’s had a significant impact on on the way that your teams are working. And I think if we now come to the aftershocks that I alluded to, if we start to look forward and talk a bit about the future, growth of content automation at Sy Morgane start with you, how do you see the continual growth of this project, helping to break down internal silos and enhance collaboration, between teams at Syz Group.
Morgane Keo Kosal: So I think, there are a few things. the first thing is that, what we want to do in now is to, once we will create our dashboards. so the cleanse dashboard and the bank dashboard, we want to, to share that on a weekly or monthly basis. so it’ll be useful for. the investment team who are writing the research, the team of Gaétan who are, writing the product, information, the services information but also the, the bankers.
So we want to first leverage on these data, as we said, just to, uh, better, uh, target, our content and improve it. The second thing is also, to look at, how it’s, used by the bankers themselves. Cause, we want to know, if people adopt the tool. So we also have a bigger work on the change management, and I think that’s the biggest work.
And it’s still ahead of us is training the bankers and making sure that they all use it and we can also use the data to see that. So that will be quite useful and easy to have the discussion with, with data to support us.
And then regarding the automisation, we have only done the pitchbook, has been, created as a, step by step, guide, where we ask, ask question to generate the content, but I, I’m sure we’ll have more, uh, content that will be built this way in the future as it was our main focus, we haven’t really listed this content yet. and also we want to give us some time to, uh, to make sure the, the platform is used as it is. And that was also, one of the, the biggest, uh, wish at the beginning is just. To keep it simple and, uh, make sure we don’t, uh, miss our, primary objective, which, which was to, review the content, have a single source of, uh, of data, and make an easy way to, create and distribute the content. So, so I, think, at least for the next six months, we, we will just focus on the data, try to learn from what, uh, we see. and then think about additional, automatisation.
Rachael Rowe: Excellent. Thank you. And I, and I guess this is, this is a question to, to both of you. so as, you, you know, the spirit of continuous improvement as, as you evolve as an organisation. How do you intend to ensure that now that you have this centralised approach, you have a single source of truth? How will this evolve to support your, your business goals?
Morgane Keo Kosal: We always add the question, you know, in the past, what does the client see? What do the client like? What do they read? what content should we produce? that won’t be a non answered, questions anymore. So that’s already good. So I think, uh, these data. will, uh, be shared as a quite a high level in the organisation and, will be useful, for many, uh, teams. So I think, it’s also another, uh, way to, we’re working because, even now when people are writing the content, they cannot get support on what the clients see. So I I think we will be able now to, to better, uh, address, our clients with relevant, maybe content and product offering because we just understand, what they read and what they don’t, what are their habits in terms of, contents.
Gemma Livermore: I think, yeah, having that so powerful and allows you to really personalise what you deliver to them.
Gaétan Oyon: If I may, what we were also really creating here is, is awareness, as, you know, one of the main use case and, you know, issues we’re battling with was, um, People were not aware of what was existing, and if they were aware, they were quite uncomfortable, with how it was presented, communicated, and I think, you know, with, with the content automation, with the new content, with the new existing content, with the right solution to deliver this, we’re also creating a lot of stability and confidence in what we’re delivering as an institution.
So if you want to drive business growth, and if you want to. On board new clients, if you want to speak to new prospects, you have to be also very certain of what you’re. pitching to them and I think with seismic, we’re perfectly on spot. And I’m quite sure that if our people are comfortable with what they’re using, in terms of tools, then, it will naturally drive business growth And their ability to go out there and uh, drive their books and, and onboard new people. So I think, it’s just a a, a a natural cycle where if we’re doing things better as an institution, it’s gonna, it’s gonna defacto and improve, how we’re able to, you know, to drive growth, uh, outside of our walls.
Gemma Livermore: And I think that’s why I love the term enablement so much because it starts off, you know, as the story has unfolded with automation and yet actually it’s so much more than that because it enables each of them to be more confident and to be able to access what they need with ease. And so it really does enable everybody. in their journey on that growth scheme. so as we come to that, Gaétan, I’d love to get your vision for the future in what role this will play in driving business growth as, as it becomes bigger and you think bigger.
Gaétan Oyon: To me, a significant role, why is that is you know, at first we had in mind that this would solve a lot of our internal issues and then it would have an impact on, you know, external, use cases. but I think what we’re really seeing here is the potential to extend this solution, beyond our walls and to leverage it for clients, for external asset managers. So I think we, we really want to understand how we can provide this solution, to the next level. And, this will. Show, and this would present us as an institution that is also constantly innovating, evolving, you know, trying to, ride this technology wave.
And I think in terms of positioning, this is key. And I’m pretty sure that whoever we will be talking to just by showing how we deliver solution, how we deliver content to people and how. we can implement such solution inserted in, some relationships that we have with, with external financial institutions that are in, some cases, also our clients, I think it’s, it’s also an, open door to, you know, new collaboration and new business coming in because I think you also want to partner up with institution that, you know, share this type of vision and especially in, in Geneva, in the competitive market with a lot of players, there are also a lot of players that need to partner up with banks. And I think, here it’s more in the Uh, there’s a lot of potential to drive, business growth with such a solution. so I think we, we see multiple use case where we can just extend this. this project and cover new grounds.
Gemma Livermore: Yeah. And, you know, with all journeys and enablement journeys and those projects continue to grow, there’s always something new. Do you foresee any challenges to get to that point and, do you have any plans on how to address them?
Morgane Keo Kosal: so the I think the first change that we’ll have is that, for us when we launch the solution on the like in mid September. So it’s not only a new platform, but it’s also a new content on how to pitch the client. So we make things much easier for people who have just arrived to the bank.
so if I imagine a banker arriving, uh, in August and in September, his experience will be completely different because at least he will be able to see, what is, the offering from the bank and, The message will be clear for him, and it will be easy for him to understand the services and the value proposition of the bank but for people who have been here for quite a long time, maybe, and who have been used to creating their own content, maybe one of the challenge will be to, Adopt, the content that has been, uh, created. so that’s one of the, the challenge, I guess. but, it’ll also make their job easier and, uh, help them focus on what is important as gate onset, which is, um, this talking with the. And maybe, the other challenge is, you know, it’s like, yeah, when we launch a content platform, it’s always good at the beginning because content is up to date. People are really motivated to update everything. And, on our side, we need to really keep, these, moments, and make sure that people really, uh, continue to update the latest content and we continue to make sure that, we, we don’t have anything that is outdated because that’s also, something that will promote the tool and give confidence, to the bankers, when they’re using it, so.
Gemma Livermore: Yeah, completely agree. And that’s the part that I think, is hardest for everyone when they take on a new technology is looking at that user adoption. So. yeah, you’re not alone in facing that.
Rachael Rowe: So I think it’s clear that the journey to streamline and personalise content at Syz Group is already making a significant impact. And, we look forward to seeing how these initiatives continue to evolve and drive success.
Gemma Livermore: Definitely, it’s been a really interesting conversation and one that I think a lot of people will, will relate to when they’re So, before we wrap up up, I’d like to ask both of you what advice you’d give to our listeners and other private banks that are looking to start a similar journey towards enablement. If you were at the beginning of your journey now, what advice would you give?
Gaétan Oyon: Well, I’ll jump on this. I’ve got multiple advice that come, come to my head. one of the key one is, you know, have the right sponsorship. Why is that? It’s when you’re bringing change, it’s always. It’s always complicated. this may be a sort of a low hanging fruit, but, I think sponsorship is key.
And that’s, we’re very lucky to have, uh, to have, you know, sponsors at, at, at the very top who are, as confident as we are, that this will bring, you know, massive change to the organisation and, and create value. And one of the key elements, you know, that I’ve noticed working on content, you know, implementing the solution, speaking to multiple stakeholders, people with, you know, different visions that, Need to provide on a daily basis. So some of them have, you know, operational milestones and it’s difficult for them to have a more it’s a helicopter view. do not guess for others. so I think, this project has been, has been working well so far because we’ve, gave a seat to everyone at the table to really understand, you know, what, what they’re looking for.
And, and, and, And also understand how they understand what we’re bringing to them. and make sure, I think the last point I could add is. Make sure you understand where, this project will go in six, 12, 18 months. and I think Morgane and I, we, we immediately saw the potential and we were able to hold our horses, and not overstep what we were trying to do, but really, stick to our road map, even though, you know, even though when you’re delivering a solution that has a lot of potential, you want to be full speed. Uh, I think we, we focused on delivering the core of the projects and then we, kept aside, you know, the, the next phases of it, but we’ll make sure it’s already written in the road map budget wise as well. so that we have everything settled for the upcoming months and, and also for our audience, it’s going to be much easier to show that, you know, we, we’ve been tackling problems by problems and, and, we’re, we’re coming, we’re coming up with solutions along the way, to make sure that this product is ever evolving.
Gemma Livermore: Thank you both so much for sharing your insights. I think this, this episode has not just been interesting to have the conversation, but I think that our listeners will really relate to what’s been said on an interest level, but also on a practical and helpful level. So thank you both of you for all of your tips and sharing your story with us today. It’s been a really fascinating discussion and look forward to seeing you both soon. Bye. Bye.
