Emirates NBD boosts revenue, profitability and customer service with SAS analytics 

Emirates NBD is a leading financial group in the Middle East, North Africa, & Turkey (MENAT) region. The bank operates in 13 countries and serves more than 14 million customers. Since its inception in 1963, Emirates NBD has evolved steadily and now offers a broad range of solutions in corporates, retail, investment, and private banking, and treasury & asset management, across a broad region. The group’s Customer Intelligence & Engagement (CIE) team is responsible for integrating data across all systems and applications to create a unified and robust Enterprise Data Platform (EDP). This output is then leveraged by the group’s Visual Insights team to create informative dashboards, and by the Analytics team to make data-driven decisions. The Digital team further leverages this information to plan all digital marketing initiatives, which are personalized to create each individual customer experience.

Challenges: 

As the analytics arm of the bank, the CIE has constantly striven to create solutions that support the organization’s business goals. To achieve this, the team formulated the Multiplier Effect framework, with which the organization aims to move from a product-led approach to a customer-led one and to provide solutions that really meet customers’ individual needs. The CIE had to break down silos and work across teams to create a one-stop analytics solution while managing the cultural change related to data-driven decision-making in the organization. Previously, there was a risk that customers would receive communications on multiple products that did not meet their requirements. For instance, if a customer has a savings account with Emirates NBD, they may be contacted for a host of other products too, irrespective of what their needs may be. This leads to customer fatigue, and irrelevant, persistent communication can also adversely impact their perception of the bank. With the Multiplier Effect framework, customer behavior and spending patterns are analyzed to allow Emirates NBD to make better product recommendations.

Benefits:

Customer Focus

With the Multiplier Effect, the bank has moved from a product-centric to a customer-centric approach. Customers are now contacted for products and services that are directly relevant to their needs and that they are more likely to accept. Conversion rates are higher, resulting in improved revenue, greater profitability, and greater customer satisfaction. With enhanced insights, customers can be targeted through their preferred contact channel.

Incremental value

Right targeting based on propensity models gives a clearer indication of how likely customers are to access a product or service. Instead of sending homogeneous communications to all customers, only the segment of customers most likely to take up an offer will now be targeted. Revenue maximization is achieved by promoting the right product and service to the right customer. Personalizing communication and contacting customers through their preferred channel maximizes conversions and reduces customer fatigue.

Cost savings and ROI

Card customers who were earlier offered both loans on credit card and balance conversion are now offered the most appropriate product, through the Multiplier Effect approach. Conversions have increased by 10%. Debit card retention campaigns based on this approach have generated 33% incremental spends, and foreign exchange activation models for affluent customers have captured 60% of activations from just 30% of customers.

Solution: 

SAS has worked with Emirates NBD on the creation and ongoing development of the Multiplier Effect framework, which should be dynamic and constantly evolving to ensure that it is achieving the best results. SAS also helps ensure that Emirates NBD’s business intelligence platforms are easy to implement and use. SAS Advanced Analytics and Decisioning platform are used in conjunction to build and deploy machine learning models and provide intelligent decisions in real time to manage on-boarding strategies