case study
Organisations today expect their Enterprise Applications to improve business performance in a measurable way. In an intensely competitive global marketplace, it is critical for enterprises to improve their operational efficiency in order to keep pace with constant industry changes. To achieve this, they need state-of-the-art technology (in the form of their Enterprise Applications) to meet specific needs. To do this they need a partner who can provide cutting-edge solutions that help them redefine the way they do business.
MerrionIT is focused on providing packaged and platform-led services ranging from designing, building, deploying, and managing CRM applications.
MerrionIT helps clients:
- Standardise processes and gain real-time insight into their cost-effectiveness and profitability
- Accelerate time-to-market and increase ROI by maximising enterprise applications efficiency
- Migrate, maintain, and integrate globally distributed enterprise applications across the enterprise
Customer Profile : Broker CRM
BrokerCRM builds Customer Relationship Management solutions for Property, Mortgage and Financial services at retail level. By using the latest web 2.0 technology, BrokerCRM allows Brokers and Agents a ‘single view’ for managing all aspects of the customer interaction to ensure Business Process efficiency and Financial Regulation Compliance.
The project objective
BrokerCRM Lite was envisioned as a web-based software package that aids regulatory compliance and at the same time is designed to give brokers 100% office mobility where they can meet their clients and give them mortgage and insurance quotes in real time on site. The system is a complete CRM solution and incorporates all the key features of the BCRM windows platform like full client and product information, net worth and income calculators, mortgage and life protection applications, data downloads from providers and proposal uploads.
Key Challenges
MerrionIT Evaluated the feasibility of new product idea by interacting with the key stakeholders and performed analysis to identify the critical requirements / challenges for the success of the project.
- Accessibility of the application – Since most brokers would be mobile, making the application accessible easily even when travelling was an important consideration.
- Ease of Use – The brokers are not very tech-savvy and hence the application had to be intuitive with very little training requirement.
- Handle the different data requirements of the various banks / lending institutions the broker may be dealing with in the same system framework.
- Ability to update critical financial /mortgage data in real time into the system received through varied formats from different banks
- Comply with the regulatory and statutory requirements of the law in terms of the data confidentiality, security and also workflow etc.
Solution
The solution was developed as a browser-based client utilizing .Net 3.0 based XBAP user interface and SQL Server 2005 technologies in the backend.
MerrionIT worked closely with BCRM in the planning stage to ensure that a thorough study of the existing system and also the competitive systems is carried out to arrive at a final set of features that would be developed as part of the Lite application. A requirement specification document was drawn based on the features agreed by detailing out each function in minute detail. MerrionIT then built an interactive prototype of the deliverable BCRMLite system. The prototype was shared with all end users for feedback on the screen flow, usability etc.
MerrionIT produced a new database design based on the old database and additional requirements outlined in the brief.
BCRMLite provided an extensive administration and management system allowing BCRM to setup new broker accounts, banks and also update the master data of the system right from users to the business information on a needs be basis.
BCRMLite also provided for an exhaustive reporting mechanism in the form of charts as well as graphs and with all the reports being exportable to excel. The reporting mechanism provided interface to generate reports based specific data and search criteria.
Benefits
- A web-based thin client interface that is available without the need for installation for access from anywhere over the internet.
- A user interface based on standard ribbon control framework of Microsoft so that the navigation and functionality work similar to the office suite that most brokers are familiar with.
- Created an XSD based dynamic Form Fabricator for filling out the client details that is created on the fly based on the schema and rules set as part of the XSD. This meant a onetime creation on the server side of an XSD specific to each bank and then would be available for all the brokers.
- A pull and push mode web service that would accept and update the mortgage rates in real time using various formats like XML, ASCII text file, CSV, excel file.
- Define the standard workflow items, mandatory requirements in the compliance as part of a alert tool bar that would get activated every time a compliance step is encountered
- Data security was managed through encryption in storage and also by implementing role, function and access based privileges at the individual data element level in the system.
Technologies Used
- Use of .Net 3.0 framework and the windows presentation foundation based XBAP application to provide for more visually appealing and dynamic user interface.
- Expose the critical functionality for communication interfaces through web services for better maintenance and seamless integration.
- Use of XSD and XML for better handle over the data integrity while ensuring flexibility on the structure of the data.
- Use of SQL Server 2005 to enable easy retrieval and manipulation of XML-based data sets and work easily with the .Net framework.
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