BearingPoint is to offer so-called Customer Identity Management (CIM) services, a blend of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Identity Management and Risk Management. It says the new consultancy practice will help companies gain more information about their customers while keeping their information private and secure.
“Respecting customer privacy preferences and providing customer confidentiality are vital to establishing and maintaining a trusting relationship,” says Christopher Formant, Executive Vice President, Global Financial Services, BearingPoint. “Customer identity management allows companies to get to know their customers, protect customer privacy and at the same time provide information available on those customers to employees and in some circumstances, business partners. Customer identity management can help companies to transform their business models from an account-centric to customer-centric focus.”
Bearing Point says The Customer Identity Management addresses the fact that companies want to know more about their customers without violating privacy laws or intruding upon a customer’s own sense of privacy. CRM systems have allowed companies to gain more information on customer preferences and interests, says the consultancy, but risk management systems are used to mitigate company and customer exposure that arise from forging deeper relationships.
“Customer Identity Management can also help capture patterns of fraudulent behavior of customers and establish internal controls to support compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley Act, data protection provisions of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and the USA Patriot Act,” adds Alex Berson, a Senior Manager with BearingPoint.
CIM systems help companies comply with existing and emerging regulatory requirements, create a true digital identity of customers and prospects, help gain a deeper understanding of their customer, help build trusted relationships between the company and their customers, and thus deliver increased value to customers – says Bearing Point.
Berson noted that Customer Identity Management incorporates the business processes and infrastructure to create, maintain and use digital identities and the associated relationships. “CIM is both a business strategy and a framework for organizing disparate data and the set of technologies and processes to manage that information,” he says.