For a long time, we at Qlik have believed that there is a golden opportunity for financial services companies to take some of the great analytical insights they generate for people who work in their head offices, and get that information out to the field. To the people who meet customers, the people who sell services, and the people who determine whether or not a customer receives a satisfactory experience.

The people in the field really matter, they are the people who see the customers the most – the first impression – and yet in so many organizations they are the least equipped to serve their customers as well as they would like.

So we commissioned a survey, in partnership with the Wall Street Journal Custom Studios, who have interviewed 300 financial services executives about how they manage data, and how they use that data to drive key decision making criteria out to the edges of their businesses.

Some of the key findings included:

• Only about half of the company officials surveyed clearly understand who in their operations need what information to best do their jobs.
• While financial services companies have access to powerful insights from their data, often this data doesn’t make its way to employees at the front lines of the organization. That is, those who are customer-facing and need it the most.
• While most executives believe that expanded production of analytic insights is a priority, fewer than one in five plan to substantially enhance their company’s ability to deliver analytic insights to every part of their organization.

So despite knowing that customer-facing employees are the group who stand to gain the most from analytical insights, their organizations are not making sufficient efforts to get them the information they need.

At Qlik we have delivered solutions that help front line employees in banks and insurers to serve their customers better, make more informed selling decisions, and build closer relationships with their customers.  It is one of the business solutions that we believe delivers the highest possible returns. We recently published a document which goes into greater detail on our top 12 solutions in financial services.