International Institute of Finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

International Institute of Finance - Essay Example IIF has a robust Knowledge space in the form of its website which is used to provide above packaged knowledge in part of full to public and members. Knowledge events include briefings, meetings, seminars, conferences, workshops, staff visits to information sites, collaborative efforts to bring together global financial lenders, etc. Firstly, CRM can help IIF to handle the increase in its membership base (from 150 in 1996 to 20,000 in 2001). CRM will handle list of members with appropriate information, such as contacts, areas of interests, history and other related information. So IIF can create groups and subgroups of members, classify them by various parameters, send them adequate promotion information, and notify them about potentially interesting events. Although IIF does not have revenue goals, all these improvements will raise quality of services, members' satisfaction and loyalty and facilitate work of staff of IIF. Secondly, CRM can provide staff and members of IIF access outside of the office that increases flexibility and mobility for both staff and members. It is true that top managers of banking and financial institutions travel a lot, so access to IIF knowledge base via Internet from anywhere on Earth will be very useful for them. ThThirdly, CRM will provide ground for interaction of members with potential members, for example, via newsletters, online discussions, publications, meetings and other forms of communications. So marketing to potential members will be supported. The proposed CRM is much better then Access database, what IIF is currently using. To begin with, use of Access was limited to IIF premises; its traveling staff could not access it in travel. Also, it had limited versatility in that it abruptly aborted when accessed by more than five users simultaneously. Then, membership-billing system was separate and membership department sent bills manually to members. Similarly events department had to collect events' registration details from IIF website and re-key it in the Access database system. So Access database does not meet current needs of IIF. The new CRM must meet management's strategic objective to have robust activities even with incredibly increased client base and offer members a comprehensive user interface. More importantly, the management wanted an integrated view of CRM, billing, accounting and events management alongside making its databases accessible to mobile staffers and public-members or non-members. The new CRM included not only all of the above in its design but also had the capability to handle increased staffers' research efforts warranted by dynamic economic scenarios in emerging markets. The value of designing the system with an open architecture Before talking about open architecture, I would like to mention that an architecture-first approach would really help in the situation. An early focus on the architecture results in a solid foundation for the 20% of the stuff (requirements, components, use cases and risks) that drives the overall success of the project. Getting the architecturally important components to be well understood and stable before worrying about the complete set of different features should make