In a competitive environment, it is customer convenience that makes the difference. In line with this credo, Prudential ICICI overhauled its network infrastructure, providing customers quicker and more efficient response mechanisms. Stanley Glancy finds out how this change in IT infrastructure has helped the company in ‘Taking Care of your investments’

Implementing a centralised database has helped in efficient distribution of resources, says Kalyan Prasath

Customer service is key to the success of any organisation. Studies have proved that a loyal customer is worth five times more than a new customer. Ron Swift in his book ‘Accelerating Customer Relationships: Using CRM and Relationship Technologies’, says that an intimate knowledge of your customer base is crucial to creating profitable and loyal relations. The hospitality and travel industry realised the veracity of this a long time ago. Following in their successful footsteps are the telecom and the financial services sectors. No matter which industry we talk about, the key differentiator between the successful and the not-so-successful players has all along been prudent deployment of information technology. Mumbai-based asset management company, Prudential ICICI, is a prime example of making it big in the short-term, optimising the advantages offered by IT. From managing assets worth just Rs 160 crore in 1998, the company has in a short time span graduated to managing assets worth more than Rs 10,538 crore as on December 2002.

The company
The Indian mutual fund market, till the early 90s under the purview of a few government asset management agencies (ASAs), opened up it doors to the private sector in the mid-90s. Mutual funds were the ideal investment vehicle for retail investors with a common investment goal of pooling money and diversifying their portfolio.

Liberalisation in this sector saw many international asset management companies joining hands with Indian financial institutions to offer the retail investor mutual fund products to suit individual investment needs. Prudential ICICI (Pru ICICI) is a 55:45 joint venture between UK-based Prudential Insurance and India’s ICICI Bank. The company has already launched several products to suit different risk and maturity profiles. The company has a net worth of about Rs 69.89 crore as of March 31, 2002.

Need for connectivity
With over 26 branches spread across the country Pru ICICI found it imperative to have a system in place to connect each branch with the main office in Mumbai.

Previously the company used to rely on a FoxPro database. As one can imagine the system was not flexible enough to serve the needs of a rapidly growing organisation. Bureaus across the country used to photocopy the applications received by customers and then courier it to the Mumbai office. The applications were scanned and entered into the database. The quality audit took place 2-3 days after the application was received. The final account statement was created after the quality audit. There was a 7-10 day gap because of this process leading to a longer turnaround time per application. Customers who wanted redemption within a week faced a problem with this system. Also, if a particular office received more than the usual number of applications it used to increase the load on the system as well as the personnel, which in turn led to delays in transactions.

Another area that required smoothening out involved the despatch of statements to the customer. Earlier around 60-100 statements were printed everyday and were then faxed to the customers. This was not only time consuming but expensive as well, as each statement ran into a minimum of three pages. Also, valuable human resources were occupied in non-productive work like redialling the fax number in case the receiver was busy at the other end.

The solution
The priority was to implement a centralised database. Data is entered through the front-end tool PowerBuilder, which is now getting phased out and replaced by a client/server-based system. Pru ICICI now uses Oracle for taking care of its backend needs. With the centralised database, if there is an overload of applications received in any particular branch, then the central pool of people in Mumbai distribute the load. The extra load is diverted to the area where resources are relatively free. 20 of the 26 branches have been connected via a leased line. The backbone supporting the network is that of parent company, ICICI Bank. Hence, each Pru ICICI branch is connected to the local ICICI Bank’s LAN network. Says Kalyan Prasath, vice president-information technology for Prudential ICICI, “The centralised database has helped us in providing better customer service. Now a customer is not attached to any particular branch. They can get their queries answered from any branch in the country.”

The branches no longer courier the application to the Mumbai office. The details are entered into the system on the same day using Hummingbird, which has been customised to suit the company’s needs. The advantage of the system is that along with the data even the image is now available for viewing and verification. Hummingbird has made it possible for the company to capture and index paper-based documents and manage them in tandem with the electronic content. Digitisation of content has made it possible for users to enjoy immediate access to critical resources. Document metadata and text-based image content is captured and indexed to support user queries, and the way images are shared and revised have been fine-tuned with flexible security controls.

Due to the immediate availability of details in the application, the quality audit now happens on the same day. This has reduced the turnaround time to 24 hours.

Cost cutting and operational efficiency
Says Prasath, “When we consider adopting a particular technology we look at the operational cost and think of how we can reduce it. We also look at reducing the turnaround time and increasing operational efficiency.” Pru ICICI has now deployed RightFax faxing solution for handling faxing requirements. Close to 100 final statements are prepared and faxed each day, with each statement running into at least 2-3 pages. The automation of this process has resulted in tremendous cost savings for the company.

Pru ICICI has been able to bring about greater efficiency in sending and receiving documents electronically from desktops, e-mail, and other business applications by integrating fax, e-mail and Internet technologies. Information like history file, name of sender, time sent, destination address, billing code/s, etc are also readily available with this system. Security has been enhanced as incoming faxes can be routed immediately to the addressee’s mailbox by direct selection on arrival (DSA). Outgoing faxes are sent during off-peak hours to lower operating costs. Transmission is also faster than manual faxing.

Says Prasath, “Earlier each statement had to be printed out and then faxed to the customer. Various factors were involved, which was costing the company precious resources in terms of time wasted in sending the faxes, cost of printouts taken, real estate cost of storing the printouts, etc. Now, the faxes are sent straight to the customer with the least bit of human involvement. Also, the problem of sending the fax again in case transmission quality was bad has now been taken care off. You can configure the machine to keep trying a number.”

Digitisation has also enabled the ASA to cut down on cost of photocopying each transaction for storage purposes. The bank conducts between 800-1,200 transactions per day on an average. Each transaction takes up at least three pages. This results in the generation of a lot of paper. Now with all transactions stored online, the company has seen a tremendous reduction in paper wastage as well as in the cost of photocopying each page. Searching has also been made easier and human resources are now free for handling core activities.

In an effort to improve employee morale the company has even adopted IT for its HR processes. The entire history of employees and their payment schedules have been made available online and a reimbursement model has also been incorporated into the system. Claim redemption and leave sanctioning, which was earlier a long drawn process has now been reduced to a minimum through automation of the process. Previously, tracking of vouchers used to pose a problem. But with Lotus Notes being used as a messaging platform, vouchers are sent straight to the person in-charge and on approval the voucher is transferred to the financial department and money is transferred to the bank.

Call centre facility
The ASA has also introduced call centre facilities for its customers in Mumbai. This is one facility, which is currently unique in the mutual fund industry in India. Now customers can conduct redemption and purchase over the phone. As a separate call centre is not a feasible option the company has integrated its system with the ICICI Bank call centre in Mumbai. According to Prasath, this is also part of ICICI’s strategy towards creating synergy within the group. He says, “An integrated call centre provides us with opportunities for cross-selling products of group companies. And since the cost of operations is being shared by us it made lots of business sense for us.”

VoIP
Currently VoIP is run on the leased line. But this is expected to change with the department of telecom (DoT) giving its approval for the running of both voice as well as text on the same line. The company has made an investment of close to Rs 13 lakh to make this possible. Prasath estimates that the company is saving approximately Rs 15-20 lakh through VoIP. This figure is expected to go up once text-messaging capability is incorporated. Says Prasath, “More than cost saving, the feedback from departments has been good. Managers are free to discuss issues thoroughly without worrying about cost. This has encouraged interactive discussions between managers, which has in turn proved productive for the company.”

VoIP has also helped the IT team to simplify the trouble shooting process. The engineer guides the person stationed in another city using this system. This helps the organisation save on the cost of travelling to the problem area or of appointing an engineer at each branch. Pru ICICI is using pcAnywhere for remote management as it allows simultaneous file transfer and also chat. Explains Prasath, “The solution has provided the IT team with a secure and flexible option for reducing the cost of remotely supporting employees and managing servers and networks.”

Website
The Pru ICICI website provides a phenomenal amount of educational material related to mutual funds and the products on offer. Other than this, the site also serves as a payment gateway for online transactions. Currently, there are 1,500 people registered for online transactions. The company is planning to add more payment gateways to make it possible for each customer to access information related to his account over the net.

Security
KPMG helped the company define its security policies. The company has installed a two-tier CheckPoint firewall—the Internet has been connected to the outer firewall and the WAN to an internal firewall. The AMA has also deployed RealSecure for intrusion detection. RealSecure uses a distributed client-server architecture comprising a workgroup manager and various sensors that can be used to monitor traffic on multiple platforms and network environments. The Workgroup Manager provides a secure channel of communication to administer, configure and generate reports from the installed sensors.

Previously, the company had deployed Symantec Norton AntiVirus but switched to Symantec Enterprise Edition as security needed to be increased. One server has been dedicated to searching the Symantec site for updates. All the patches are directly taken from the system and a centralised server updates the system. This has paid rich dividends as the company hasn’t had even one virus problem in the past one year.

Pru ICICI has also barcoded every single asset it owns. Intellicon provided the barcode application solution, which cost the company Rs 1 lakh. Pru ICICI uses SystemOut, a desktop management software for information about each machine and the software installed on them. As soon as employees log in their query, the software provides information about the system and its problems. Disaster recovery has also been enabled by KPMG. A DR centre has been set up within Mumbai at the Santacruz branch. According to Prasath, the entire system can be up and running in a span of four hours.

Future
The company has defined minimum applications that need to be implemented and the services that need to be provided to the customer. Says Prasath, “We are looking at all channels—Web, walk-in, telephone and call centre for serving customers. Our aim is to provide the customer with a unified solution. Customers should be able to access the same information no matter which media they are using. Technology should be leveraged to the maximum possible extent for the customer.”