Njål Norheim, Director of Insurance and Partner at Eiendomsfinans, has clear ideas about what it takes to be a top-performing finance organisation.

“Make facts and figures visible,” he says. “Afterall, you can’t expect to run a marathon without knowing how fast you are going.”

Eiendomsfinans is one of Norway’s most comprehensive providers of personal financing solutions, loans and insurance. The company has grown significantly the past 3 consecutive years and is looking to pass the 100 MNOK mark in 2019.

Six months ago, Eiendomsfinans connected  Business Analyze to SuperOffice, their CRM system. Together, these software applications are their central hub for 60 financial advisors who serve customers nation-wide.

In addition to other responsibilities, Njål works to optimize internal systems and routines. That’s no small challenge at a time when data and analytics is a competitive advantage.

We met Njål in Drammen to learn about his experience so far.

“Why is CRM data and analytics important”, we asked?  “What difference has new business analytics software made?”

This is what he said:

Two systems are better than one

Connecting Business Analyze to SuperOffce CRM has made us more effective. We have more time to get to know our customers and deliver services that make them happier.

Our old analytics tool simply didn’t work as well. We know the CRM system holds a lot of potential, and we were looking for ways to better leverage the data in it.

Now we’re more in touch with the business. We instantly see what’s changing day to day and week to week. It’s easier to spot things we should work on or prioritize in order to reach goals.

Easier track and analyze sales

We track revenues versus targets, budgets and forecasts. Business Analyze build s a picture of what’s happening from different angles – advisor to advisor, department to department and across the organisation.

Business analytics has also helped us identify which data we must capture in SuperOffice. We don’t want to too much either. For example, we started recording important activities and lead sources. Now we know where leads are coming from and where we should focus efforts.

This kind of insight will help us become an even stronger member of the Norwegian financial community.

Make facts and figures visible

As brokers for many of Norway’s largest financial institution, we are expected to reach certain targets. Business Analyze tells us whether we are on target or how much we are off. It shows where we have the biggest opportunity.

Each one of our advisors has a scoreboards. We set personal targets and measure focus activities. We review status in weekly meetings.

In our organisation, we don’t keep performance a secret. If Drammen sees they are falling behind Bergen, you can bet Drammen will work hard to close the gap.

I believe a sales organisation without scoreboards is like a runner without a watch. How does that go?

Remember to discuss all the alternatives

There are many different ways we help customers solve financial challenges. Some of the products we offer are complex. Business Analyze helps our advisors remember various options.

We track sales per product and category so we know who where a product’s is delivering value and where there are opportunities.

GDPR is next

We’ve spent more than 100 hours assessing and implementing new GDPR requirements. It’s high priority, and it’s a big change. There’s no room for error.

The next step is to secure the guidelines and processes we have in place are followed 100%. We plan to set up Business Analyze to monitor our SuperOffice database so we are certain we are following the new regulations.