Productivity tracking is no longer a nice-to-have process for investment banking and M&A advisory firms. With remote and hybrid work becoming the norm, firms must implement software that functions not only as a single source of truth for data and relationships, but also as a productivity tracker to maintain a constant stream of transparency around deal pipeline initiatives and asynchronous remote work. By better connecting teams and their work, firms can improve trust, collaboration, and communication.
Robust platforms like Intapp DealCloud can serve as both a CRM and a productivity tracker for your financial services firm. DealCloud offers proprietary and third-party data integrations as well as machine learning and AI-enhanced software capabilities; the platform also lets you program your firm’s existing workflows to automatically update within the solution, allowing for minimal disruption while still delivering transparency to those who need it.
Read on to learn three ways investment banking firms can use a purpose-built CRM tool like DealCloud as a productivity tracker.
1. Monitor deal pipelines and client needs with customized dashboards
Banker productivity updates once relied on manual data generation and meeting with colleagues. Now, investment banking and M&A advisory firms can use a single source of truth like DealCloud to build customized dashboards that operate as a seamless productivity tracker, allowing individuals to access the status of a deal or a client’s needs in mere seconds. Firms can also leverage automated reporting for new-client intake and project staffing as well as assigning coverage based on bankers’ current and projected workload.
Increased transparency around deals, productivity, and client needs is a clear value driver for M&A advisory firms like Gerald Edelman. Gerald Edelman has created more than 90 custom dashboards since implementing DealCloud, and managed 16 client projects within the platform during the first 3 months of use.
DealCloud has transformed the way that we run our business. It has become the core part of everything we do, from monitoring prospects to analyzing finances and interactions and, ultimately, managing client projects.
Nick Wallis, Head of Deal Advisory, Gerald Edelman
(Sample image; data not representative of any DealCloud client firm)
2. Manage insights and interactions automatically
DealCloud helps firms with productivity tracking by automatically and seamlessly capturing banker insights and interactions. DealCloud’s relationship intelligence solution lets firms passively capture interactions with key contacts and build firmwide networking ecosystems through each banker’s use of the Microsoft Office add-in.
Representatives of investment banking industry giant Raymond James estimates that the firm’s users enter more than 90 interactions into its DealCloud platform each day. Without DealCloud’s automatic capture capabilities, these interactions would either require manual updates or get lost in the shuffle, resulting in wasted time and effort. Furthermore, leaders within the investment bank wouldn’t have a full picture into how deals are being staffed, prioritized, and executed.
(Sample image; data not representative of any DealCloud client firm)
3. Access sophisticated reporting and analytics
DealCloud’s reporting functionality lets investment banking firms like Cassel Salpeter & Co. dynamically generate custom reports that offer deal transparency and real-time updates. Building a deal report or a project’s weekly status update previously took hours to manually complete; now, the fully customizable and filterable process takes firm users as little as 5 minutes. Consequentially, leaders can focus on productivity tracking for deal progression and spend less time figuring out whether the data is correct and up to date.
DealCloud has become an integral part of our business, facilitating operations from day-to-day actions to our customer relationship management, from project management to our onboarding process. From the moment we started working with DealCloud, the platform and its team have continually and consistently adapted to our needs, rising to meet all challenges we presented them.
Scott Salpeter, President and Co-Founder, Cassel Salpeter & Co.
(Sample image; data not representative of any DealCloud client firm)
Ready to implement a financial services CRM that also serves as a staffing and productivity tracker? Schedule an Intapp DealCloud demo.