Interview with Sonalee Panda – CMO of ING Vysya Bank.
PW: In your organization how has technology played a role in customer acquisition or retention?
SP: Today, there is a shift from technology merely supporting the back-end to driving customer-centric solutions at the front end; from being an enabler to being a market mover. We clearly demarcated our technology delivery as strategic change management and service delivery. Strategic change management team is aligned to marketing and product teams. This helps us being nimble and yet not lose our ability to customize products to cater to different customer segments.
Also our communications team works closely with change management and marketing team. This results in obviously increasing external awareness of our innovations, more interestingly technology helps build platforms into the product, which help in communicating the message. Eg: ING Zing account, a concept designed by children, taken to execution by our product and technology team. The product has an interactive, social platform www.kidzzbank.com ; which helps parents teach their kids the concept of money, saving, finance, etc.
PW: What are your current priorities as a marketer?
SP: Currently the areas we at ING Vysya are focusing on would be Customer Data Management & Analytics and Social Media & Digital Communications. Also improving Customer Self Service and developing new products for our customers. Another key priority is e-commerce.
PW: How has technology played a role in new product development, market expansion or other areas?
SP: Technology has helped us expand our product proposition, enter new market segments. Eg: ING Converge, a true innovation, which automates bulk payments made by corporates across multiple vendors, bank accounts and geographies. Allowing companies to consolidate their accounts across multiple banks and manage liquidity better. Thus giving us an edge in the growing online payments space.
Another example of creating a new market, ING Zing account. A minor account, which puts the kid the responsibility of managing their money. Meant to help parents teach their kids how to handle finances, the child can transact with a debit card and internet banking, while parents can keep tabs in the background.
Net-Promoter-Score platform is an example of technology supporting customer co-creation. Marketing team identified key customer ‘moments–of–truth’ and wanted to redesign as per customer-need. NPS platform supports instant customer feedback and analytics. This is used to re-design the moments-of-truth based on customer feedback
