Insights dated January 2021

Going live in 2021 with its new bethebrand system MPAH (Marketing Production and Approval Hub), Quilter is implementing its system to deliver pan organisational support across its businesses.

Quilter plc is a leading wealth management business in the UK and internationally, helping to create prosperity for the generations of today and tomorrow. It oversees £108.5 billion in customer investments (as at 30 September 2021). It has an adviser and customer offering spanning financial advice, investment platforms, multi-asset investment solutions and discretionary fund management.

Quilter started its search for a DAM provider in late 2020, as it sought to bring an internal network of databases together into one system that could support the whole business. The new system’s core objective was literally simplicity itself:

• Deliver state of the art literature lifecycle management to underpin its thorough compliance approach.
• Streamline record keeping and approval processes.
• Oversee and manage workflows and help drive project planning across the team.

Each Quilter business has its own sets of documents, communications, websites, advertising, social media, and sponsorship programmes. Rather than opt for a ‘big bang’ changeover, the internal implementation team started with the literature suite of one business with a system capable and configured for the whole business.

Closely supported by the bethebrand team, this starter project acted as an excellent blueprint for the rollout and demonstrated the agility of both teams in moving through design, configuration, and implementation in a matter of a few months.

An important element of the rollout is the quality and availability of system training. Quilter’s early adopters, together with the internal trainers and bethebrand’s account team, are able to showcase the system’s capabilities and improved outcomes to the entire business. This close team working provides a controlled yet agile approach with minimal business disruption.

An important insight shared by the Quilter team was that the bethebrand team was always there when they needed them, and they never felt that making a call to them would end up with an extra bill. This transparency and trust is key to every bethebrand client relationship.

B&CE offers a great example of one particular capability of the bethebrand suite, to provide a sophisticated, mass, document management system.

B&CE Group is a not-for-profit organisation established in 1942 by unions and federations with the intention of providing financial products for the construction industry. Construction workers, who tended to move jobs frequently, needed a way to build up holiday pay.

Its first scheme was simple but effective for workers, and hassle-free for employers. Every week, a construction worker would buy a stamp to stick on a card. They could then cash in the card to give themselves money to live on when they took a holiday. Over time, construction workers needed more than just a holiday pay scheme. B&CE created more financial products and substantially grew its membership.

Today B&CE is perhaps best known for The People’s Pension, a leading workplace pension scheme with more than five million pension savers from over 95,000 employers and £16 billion assets under management.

In 2015, B&CE started a project to find a system to manage the approval and storage of its communication assets.. A thorough examination of the market led to detailed discussions with bethebrand and its appointment.

Nicknamed DAS (Digital Approval System), B&CE’s bethebrand system incorporates tiered access across the organisation. Amongst the B&CE user base are a core of internal trainers and superusers. This allows the organisation the freedom and flexibility to expand, train and develop its user base as required, whilst having a core team of senior system ‘ambassadors’ fully supported by the bethebrand team. This integrated and cascaded to training and support is both highly cost effective and operationally effective for B&CE.

The sophistication and size of the operational communications to five million savers is vast. It allows B&CE the convenience of a single pan-organisational system to safely store all customer communications across every channel.

The system’s document management functionality is configurated precisely to B&CE’s requirements. It is combined with full audit trail and approval functionality that allows users from right across the business, not just marketing, to collaborate, create, comply and control an intricate web of customer communications.