Independent Futures Clearinghouse
Opportunity Tracking System
Industry: Security and Commodity
Service
Focus: Collaboration, Information Management
As an independent futures clearinghouse,
the firm provides clearing and other services related to
trading for major derivatives exchanges. The clearinghouse has
been an industry innovator while continuing its role as
guarantor of exchange-traded futures and options.
The clearinghouse would like to increase
their client base and continually pursue business
opportunities worldwide that, if secured, would expand their
business. The clearinghouse’s senior management and marketing
personnel work as a team when pursuing new business
opportunities. Each member of the business development team
may have various interactions with multiple contacts
associated with each opportunity. Such interactions could be
in the form of various documents, telephone conversations,
e-mails, meetings, etc. As opportunities proceed through the
business development process, the clearinghouse generates
additional information about each opportunity that needs to be
tracked and shared. Costs to develop the services required for
the opportunity, the opportunity’s estimated revenue and
estimated profits, and the likelihood of the clearinghouse
winning the opportunity were among the information maintained
in several spreadsheets. These spreadsheets were shared with
others – usually at regularly scheduled status meetings or on
an ad-hoc basis.
The business development process in place
at the clearinghouse was not a very efficient and reliable
process. There was no standard method of tracking the
interactions with contacts and sharing the interaction history
with other clearinghouse personnel working on the same
opportunity. Therefore, critical pieces of information and
customer interactions were sometimes lost or unavailable,
leading to potential missed opportunities. Given the
significant size of the business opportunities the
clearinghouse pursues, this was a serious issue. The
clearinghouse turned to Genisys, a Microsoft Gold Certified
Partner Program for Collaborative Solutions, to build a
solution to streamline the business development process and to
ensure the accuracy and integrity of the information moving
through the entire process.
Genisys reviewed the existing business
requirements and functional specifications, and worked with
the clearinghouse to develop a more thorough understanding of
their business development process. Genisys determined that an
opportunity tracking system based on Microsoft Exchange and
Outlook would best streamline the tracking and sharing of
information throughout the business development process. The
system would collect accurate information about prospective
opportunities and provide authorized clearinghouse personnel
with real-time access to the latest opportunity information,
including customer interactions and clearinghouse-generated
information. Genisys created several Microsoft Outlook forms
allowing members of the business development team to manage
contact information regarding clients and prospects, enter
details and manage documents regarding business opportunities,
evaluate opportunities, track interactions and manage
associated tasks. Microsoft Exchange Server is used to store
the system data and to manage the flow of information among
the members of the business development team. Exchange also
manages the one-to-many relationships between accounts and
contacts.
By delivering all businesses opportunity
contact information, interaction history, and related
documents in a real-time, collaborative environment, the
opportunity tracking system assures that all users are working
with the same accurate information. Business development team
members no longer have to rely upon other members to track
business opportunity information and interaction history. The
increased efficiencies minimize missed opportunities and lost
sales due to poor information handling.
Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Exchange
2000, Microsoft Outlook 2000
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