Published: September 01, 2010
A successful bank today needs to look outside its own organisation, and put customers’ needs at the centre of its strategy. Payment and cash management products have become commoditised in many ways, so while a customer should not take for granted products and infrastructure, which remain essential for a robust and reliable service, we recognise the importance of investing in our people, infrastructure and operations across Europe to ensure we continue to add value for our customers. Having the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles and locations, is critical to our ongoing success. While other banks are actively hiring people as they prepare for growth, we think you need to go further and ensure that employees have the skills and experience to do their job, together with the management support and infrastructure to enable them to be effective. For example, at HSBC, we have a comprehensive sales transformation programme, overhauling our processes to enable sales staff to spend their time engaging with customers and being as responsive as possible, as opposed to dealing with administration.
Having the right people with the right skills, in the right roles and locations, is critical to our ongoing success.
While HSBC has demonstrated considerable success and resilience throughout the years of crisis we are constantly striving to do better. To find the best ways of managing the business with the interests of our customers at the core, we have looked beyond banking for inspiration. For example, we have visited the sales and service organisations of major companies in other industries to understand how they deliver complex, customer-centric solutions, to understand best practices and apply these to our business. We are formalising deal coaching to ensure the right teams work together to construct, present and deliver innovative, robust solutions that specifically meet customers’ needs. In addition, although HSBC is often complimented on the quality of our RFP responses and other customer communications, we are also reviewing critically how we present information to customers and prospects to ensure that it is clear and specifically addresses customer requirements.
As well as skills and support, having the right culture throughout an organisation is essential. This can be a major challenge when people are located throughout the world, and work in countries with different business cultures. We place our customers at the heart of what we do, recognise entrepreneurship, encourage teamwork and espouse a desire for excellence across the organisation, so that we support our customers in the best way possible.
Our aim is to be the bank of choice for any company that does business internationally, wherever it is headquartered. Mainland Europe is a major focus for HSBC, building on the strength of our existing position, such as in the UK, France, Germany, Turkey etc. While most companies are aware of our global capabilities, fewer are aware of our ability to support their regional activities. Companies of all sizes need solutions to facilitate international expansion both across Europe and globally, so we have positioned our sales, product management and service organisation to facilitate this.
Global payments and cash management deals are indeed complex matters requiring co-ordination across regions and departments, with different business requirements, stakeholders and time zones. Various teams are engaged in a single project, with both regional and local objectives. Consequently, achieving a common understanding of the project status and access to relevant project information can be challenging and time-consuming. To ensure everyone has the full picture of a project status we have introduced ClientSphere, a collaborative workflow and project management tool available through HSBCnet that allows the whole team, including both customer and HSBC personnel, to share the latest updates, revise project plans, documents and status reports. By holding a consistent view of information, the risk of miscommunication amongst project stakeholders, whether internal staff, vendors, customers or the bank, is greatly reduced. All individuals involved in a project can work in collaboration, with the same reference point and common understanding of goals, constraints and deliverables, at whatever stage in the project they become involved, regardless of location and organisation.
Another common challenge for companies implementing international solutions is the need to complete documentation in each jurisdiction to satisfy local requirements. At HSBC, we are concluding a project to harmonise and simplify client documentation to make it easier to do business with us, and ensure that project time can be dedicated to activities that add specific value. This accompanies initiatives such as our global payments investigations platform that has been rolled out across more than 40 countries, and has significantly improved issue resolution times.[[[PAGE]]]
Enhancing value for our clients is a pivotal aspect of our strategy.
It is often said that ‘cash is king’ and this still rings true. In an environment where borrowing is expensive, treasurers are seeking to repatriate cash either to cover deficits in parts of the business, or to pay down debt. Consequently, we see considerable demand for cross-currency cash pooling, both physical and notional, enabling treasurers to maximise investment opportunities or offset or pay down debt. Centralisation of financial functions remains important, and there is a new emphasis on in-house banking, together with cash pools and/or payment factories.With momentum towards SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) migration growing, every company in Europe will need to make plans for migration. SEPA has moved back onto the agenda now that the immediate financial crisis has subsided, and there is more political will to turn it into a reality. Later this month, we will have a better idea of the final migration end dates with the publication of draft regulations in the European Parliament. SEPA Direct Debits (SDD) provide a real opportunity for corporates operating cross-border with mandatory reachability in November 2010, and we expect to see a considerable increase in volumes. In France, the current protocol ETEBAC 5 will be discontinued in 2011, so French companies need to implement new communication mechanisms, such as EBICS and SWIFT Corporate Access. Many are using this as an opportunity to migrate to SEPA, so we are working closely with our clients in France to help them to leverage the benefits.
Do you think that the branch banking infrastructure will become obsolete in Europe post-SEPA migration?There are some who anticipate that the current branch infrastructure will no longer be required, bearing in mind that the PSD (Payment Services Directive) that underpins SEPA enables companies to use a single euro account if required. In reality, however, while it is relatively straightforward to centralise payments at a regional level, this is more difficult to achieve for collections. Consequently, we anticipate that the majority of companies with multiple euro accounts today will continue to maintain more than one account, even though the total number may be reduced.
What will be most important in the Eurozone is that corporates are able to access a consistent level of service across the region, not only for payments but across cash management and beyond. This is a major goal for HSBC: to build on our existing capabilities to achieve greater consistency across Europe. We are developing our flagship electronic platform HSBCnet to meet local needs in each country as well as cross-border requirements, and we have designed our operating structure to enable customer-focused relationship management and customer-led product innovation, giving companies with business in Europe a real alternative to existing European banks.
However rich the functionality of a system or sophisticated a cash management structure, it is of no value if it does not address the client’s business objectives, the implementation is weak or the customer service provision is poor at the times it is needed most. Enhancing value for our clients is a pivotal aspect of our strategy, and we are making significant investments in business culture and skills as well as product and technology innovation to achieve this. Furthermore, HSBC’s global footprint means that that our clients’ needs are often geographically diverse, so they are seeking a consistent experience across their business, irrespective of location, whilst still incorporating the specifics of the country, industry or business requirement. By leveraging the same delivery channels globally, for global, regional and local solutions, supported by a cohesive approach to business solutions and the pursuit of excellence in customer satisfaction, HSBC is building a new banking model and leveraging innovation to maximise our clients’ experience.
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