Case Study
Specialist investment
manager overhauls
CRM platform with
integrated adviser data
30%
Faster closer time of
latest capital raise
On Time, On Budget
Company-wide CRM
upgrade and integration
delivered within timeframes
and within budget
10k
Average adviser changes
made each month by Adviser
Ratings’ Nightingale solution
feeding Centuria’s dynamic
Salesforce instance
Overview
Centuria is one of Australia’s largest property specialist investment managers with more than $20 billion under management. It has broad relationships across the retail wealth landscape. Hamstrung by legacy 3rd party data relationships and inefficient use of data in its CRM, Centuria sought to reimagine the whole sales and marketing process to more effectively partner with financial advisers. Today, Centuria has a data rich, dynamic, and visually collaborative CRM environment,
powered by Adviser Ratings’ Nightingale data solution, that has led to significant improvements in its sales and marketing functionalities for its 20+ strong BDM and marketing teams.
“AR was an excellent partner of choice and we now have a CRM platform that can in a timely efficient way better meet our sales and marketing needs. The data resulted in a direct improvement in sales allowing us to close out our latest $103m equity raise within 5 weeks, reducing our usual close time to raise equity by a third.”
Ben Harrop
Head of Distribution
Centuria
Problem:
Centuria identified an uncompetitive capability
gap in its sales effectiveness caused by:
- Poor adviser and practice hierarchical and reporting setup in its CRM, Salesforce
- A lack of decision-enabling reporting in Salesforce
- A lack of marketing triggers to provide a better funnel for its BDM team and more effectively target adviser relationships
- Inaccurate data in both its CRM and 3rd party enabled software, hampering BDMs sales efforts
- Lack of a single adviser view for BDMs, with duplicates and adviser history across multiple advisers and practices commonplace
- A lack of timely data to keep abreast of the changing adviser landscape
Solution:
Utilising Adviser Ratings’ in-house Salesforce expertise alongside its Nightingale data solution, Centuria overhauled its data and CRM capabilities:
- Providing an updated and accurate view of its existing adviser contacts, utilising Adviser Rating’s data matching service, and bringing multiple existing contacts and history into one.
- Establishing new hierarchical adviser, practice and licensee relationships and universal adviser data in its CRM, integrated through Adviser Ratings’ API and Nightingale solution, as part of its company-wide CRM upgrade
- Creating a single adviser view for all BDMs with real-time dashboards and performance metrics
- Creating monthly marketing triggers within the Salesforce CRMs from Adviser Ratings Nightingale solution, that captures anywhere from 6k to 15k adviser changes per month
These changes have transformed a frustrated sales culture to one that is high performing and collaborative, allowing it to focus on more meaningful and valued added discussions with advisers. It has led to a direct improvement in both sales and profitability.
Identifying the challenge of changing market conditions
and acting quickly to stay ahead of competitors
Over the years, the advice industry has changed immensely with advisers establishing new practices and licensees, changing licensees more frequently and opening their APLs to a wider market. The velocity of change was quickly making Centuria’s Salesforce instance redundant. Ben Harrop, head of distribution of Centuria Group, responsible for the performance of the sales and marketing functions, identified that their approach to data and analytics was far from where they needed in order to realise their data -driven sales aspirations.
“Originally, we utilised Salesforce CRM supplemented by an external spreadsheet to track adviser AFSL changes. By not having accurate data integrated into Salesforce it created huge inefficiencies in our sales and marketing process. We had a clear uncompetitive capability gap that needed urgent remediation” – explained Harrop.
Harrop envisioned a data driven sales culture, that could rely on the efficacy and accuracy of the data in Salesforce and create a single adviser view alongside other adviser data emanating from their Boardroom registry without second guessing whether the data in the CRM could be relied upon. Ensuring any new BDMs could immediately utilise the data in the CRM was a high priority for Centuria Group and lead to a competitive advantage amongst its peers. New BDMs could be empowered from day one of joining the organisation, without the oft felt concerns in the industry that they are not armed with the right information.
“Accurate integrated data in your CRM that enables targeting
marketing campaigns is the key to a successful capital
raising process. AR has enabled a step change in our sales
marketing campaigns.”
A reset and new mode of operating
With the goal of turning Centuria Group into a data-driven organisation, Harrop set about engaging with Adviser Ratings’ Nightingale solution. Bringing Adviser Rating’s early into the CRM upgrade process was key and allowed appropriate data structures and hierarchies to be implemented from the outset. The initial engagement required multiple data sources from its existing Salesforce and Boardroom instances to be cleaned and matched by the Adviser Ratings’ team.
Clear understanding of Salesforce integrations with unique adviser specific datasets by Adviser Ratings was key to the successful rollout of the CRM within the Centuria Group.
“We had a 6-month implementation plan coupled with a company wide CRM upgrade. Adviser Ratings was able to meet all required deadlines and ensured we anticipated any issues with data integration. The high quality and integrity of the Adviser Ratings database coupled with a professional team made the decision easy. Throughout the process of review and enablement AR have been an outstanding business partner” – remarked Harrop.
With the intent of setting up an API connection to the renewed CRM solution Centuria had consolidated, Adviser Ratings kept track of the actual progress and coordinated customised files in the meantime to allow for a smooth sales and marketing transition while the build had been ongoing.
Flexibility and business sense were prominent to assist with project mapping and coordinated implementation with all parts of Centuria’s business pillars.
“The successful implementation of any IT project is based upon the support of the provider. Adviser Ratings provided strong IT support and meticulously mapped out the project plan to ensure the data could be supported within the existing CRM framework. Adviser Ratings was an excellent partner of choice and we now have a CRM platform that can in a timely efficient way better meet our sales and marketing needs and has resulted in a direct improvement in sales and profitability.”
With accurate data at their fingertips, the BDMs within Centuria
Group have been able to more effectively and expediently build
relationships with the decision makers within each advice practice.
Result driven environment
With accurate data at their fingertips, the BDMs within Centuria Group have been able to more effectively and expediently build relationships with the decision makers within each advice practice.
Today, Centuria Group has flipped their data strategy on its head. Rather than data and their CRM being perceived as a problem, it is now an enabler. The path to being a data driven, efficient, dynamic sales culture has led to immediate gains for Centuria Group.
“The data resulted in a direct improvement in sales allowing us to close out our latest $103m equity raise within 5 weeks, reducing our usual close time to raise equity by a third” – expressed Harrop.
