Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft collaborate to help finance firms

Accenture and Avanade in collaboration with Microsoft has announced the launch of its new solution that will help financial services companies transform their customer experience using digital personalization. Announced at Microsoft Envision 2016, the ACAI or Accenture Customer Analytic Insight Solution has been developed in collaboration with Microsoft and built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

ACAI aims to aid the Baking and Financial Services Insurance sector including retail banks, capital market firms, insurance companies so that they can provide differentiated customer experiences and lucrative offerings. The solution uses a predictive analysis to offer clients the next best product or service, which is personalized to the client’s history and needs.

Piercarlo Gera, Senior Managing Director, Accenture Distribution and Marketing Services says, “Innovative financial services firms are using analytics to gain insights that help them make better business decisions and present customers with more attractive and tailored offers. The Accenture Customer Analytic Insights Solution for Microsoft combines decades of financial services experience with proven tools and advanced capabilities. The new solution can help clients drive differentiated products and customer experience, helping firms establish a competitive advantage and ultimately positioning them for growth.”

How does it work?

ACAI integrates innovative analytic technologies and capabilities to help financial service firms offer next best actions across any channel. Accenture’s Customer Analytics Record, provides an omni-channel view of customer activity in a format that is optimized for real-time decision-making. The solution then uses Microsoft Azure Machine Learning to analyze customer activity and execute robust analytical models that predict customer behavior and recommend next best actions.

Now here is where Avanade comes in; an innovative next best action execution capability enables it to be integrated with any interaction channel and system, including customer service channels using Microsoft Dynamics and digital channels. All of this results in an end-to-end solution that enables real-time decision-making, recommendations, and actions to be executed across any customer interaction channel.

“We have a strong partnership with Accenture and Avanade, and ACAI is the latest innovation in our quest to empower financial institutions to thrive in the digital world. ACAI represents how Microsoft technology can be used to help financial services companies transform into more insightful, agile and customer- centric organizations,” says Karen Cone, General Manager, Financial Services, Microsoft Corporation.

How will it help?

The advent of the digital world, client behavior towards financial services has evolved. Informed customers are always on the lookout for alternatives to traditional providers, hence, forcing the existing vendors to think out-of-the-box for their offerings.

According to a research published by Accenture, by the year 2020 about 30 per cent of banking revenues will face serious competition from new trends and competitors. BFSI companies have to look at novel initiatives to hook clients and businesses, and all of this can be done with personalization. For example ACAI can help service providers take a proactive customer-first approach, offering customers what they need rather than what the firm believes it should offer.

“Driving down customer costs, whilst enabling digital sales or service is very important for the finance and insurance industries here in the UK,” says Violetta Senda, Avanade Europe Senior Director for Digital Strategy and Digital Banking. “ACAI not only helps our clients achieve this, but it also provides UK banking and insurance companies with the data and solutions they need to transform customer relationships and, as a result, improve Net Promoter Scores.”