First Merchants Private Wealth Advisors (FMPWA), a division of First Merchants Bank, currently manages over $1.8 billion in client assets. FMPWA partners with individuals, families and organizations to provide comprehensive solutions and personal service in the wealth management disciplines of Investment Management, Personal Trust, Retirement Plans, Private Banking and Brokerage.

After completing a complex Salesforce Development project, FMPWA has significantly improved their technology through complex systems integration and increased productivity, and they have achieved a culture change that will better position them to meet their goals.

FMPWA wanted to streamline the process of managing client relationships. They were using a wealth management system that tracked investments by type, and they were also required to create Excel spreadsheets to compile information by client.

The process of creating the Excel spreadsheets was time-consuming. In addition, different members of the team often had different versions of the same spreadsheet, and the data was frequently outdated soon after the spreadsheets were completed.

FMPWA’s focus was and still is on delivering proactive service and client advocacy in building powerful, intergenerational relationships. The team wanted immediate access to up-to-date sales and investment information to improve its ability to deliver a comprehensive, coordinated approach to wealth management.

FMPWA hired Galvin Technologies to bring a better sales methodology to the team. We defined a Salesforce Development project to deploy Salesforce and integrate it with the existing system. Working closely with senior FMPWA executives, the team of Advisors, the First Merchant Information Technology department and the wealth management system’s technical support team, we began to develop a solution.

• Our first step was to meet with senior FMPWA executives to develop an understanding of the sales environment, the things Advisors were held accountable for and the information the team needed to succeed.
• The FMPWA team was concerned about the feasibility of completing an integration with the wealth management system.
• Despite the challenge, we built a strong relationship with the IT team and were successful at using Salesforce’s outstanding customization features to create unique solutions.
• Salesforce was configured to collect the right data and present it in a user-friendly way.

After a successful project implementation, positive results are now evident in a number of areas.

Improved Technology

Given the successful integration of two disparate systems, Advisors can now access a Salesforce client record to:

• More effectively manage and grow assets under management.
• Locate and update client contact information.
• Review sales activity.
• Plan and schedule new activities.
• Review all of the client’s current wealth management detail, including account holdings and positions.

Increased Productivity

• The time required to prepare Excel spreadsheets was eliminated.
• Sales meetings are now run from the Salesforce dashboard, thus saving time and improving the effectiveness of the sales management and planning process.
• Advisors have immediate access to all the information they need to quickly deliver proactive service and client advocacy.

Accelerated Culture Change

One of the biggest challenges of any Salesforce implementation is guiding an organization to full adoption of the new technology. The FMPWA team members weren’t experienced CRM users. With our assistance and strong management leadership, however, the team is now taking full advantage of the benefits this integrated system offers.
Michael Joyce, the President of FMPWA, knew systems integration was the key to truly transforming how he runs and manages his sales organization.

“When we selected Salesforce, we knew we needed to work with a partner that could effectively integrate Salesforce with our wealth management system — an integration that had many complexities to it.” says Joyce. “The partnership we formed with Galvin Technologies has allowed us to meet our goals.”

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