Mar 2020 | Covid-19 | Business Resilience

In these times of global transformation and economic uncertainty, commercial resilience and the ability to maintain business continuity remains the best defence.

As many companies task themselves with understanding, reacting to, and learning lessons from a changing world, there are some very straightforward routes to ensuring early warning systems are in place to flag signs of financial stress, help prevent delinquency and protect against risk.

However, even during challenging trading conditions, the ability to adapt to evolving markets at speed and scale to disruption, while protecting customers, assets and reputation, is already separating top-performing firms from competitors.

Based on Experian’s ongoing analysis for our clients world-wide, we have distilled 10 steps for ensuring the continued acquisition of new customers, safeguarding existing customers and upholding business quality.

The first 4 steps:

“This is a time when advanced analytics can positively impact businesses, the financial services industry, and above all the lives of people – people who are feeling sudden and acute uncertainty,” says Veronica Flyckt, Head of Analytics and Site Manager of Experian the Netherlands, who shares the first four steps here. “I think that Step 2 is particularly important right now: ‘Update intelligence daily with real-time risk analysis’. The world is changing minute to minute, and we need to stay on top of the current situation in real time.”

1. Develop resilient credit management strategies

While efficiency reigns in a surprise-free climate, key to navigating unpredictable waters is resilience. In these times, it’s critical to safeguard customers against over-indebtedness. This means balancing customer opportunities with appropriate lending strategies by continually offering the right credit limits to the right customers. But determining the best credit limit for each customer amid evolving circumstances – both at the point of application and during a relationship – can present a minefield. Nevertheless, smart and scalable solutions are available to uphold decision-making and support both risk and operational objectives, whether that’s warding off bad debt or minimising business exposure. Read about our Credit Management solutions.

2. Update intelligence daily with real-time risk analysis

As unanticipated events unfold with every news cycle, it becomes more vital than ever to keep data at the heart of your strategies. Turning real-time information into insight and insight into action helps businesses make the right decisions for their customers across the customer lifecycle. We all know that data provides the raw understanding that fuels decisions. But it’s what you do with it and where it takes you that counts. Experian is known for combining advanced tools and techniques with expertise in credit risk to help you bring data to life and turn it from information into insight. See how risk analytics can help you.

3. Constantly reframe your understanding of the next-best action for your customers

While large organisations are hardly known for their flexibility, the need to be constantly fine-tuning collection strategies is at an all-time high. Identifying the right communication channel for each customer and executing it at the correct time, via the most appropriate route, with the right terms, are all critical components of any successful collection strategy. But as repayment habits are continually evolving, selecting the most appropriate action for each individual customer is growing increasingly challenging.

Our advanced analytics can help risk and collections teams to evaluate a host of flexible strategies for successful customer collection. Read about collections strategy optimization.

4. Beware of hype and make more data-driven affordability decisions 

When yesterday’s performance dictates how organisations think about crises today, we all rely on the ability to distinguish between hard facts and speculation. Data and insight can help you make confident decisions, so you can assess affordability quickly and easily. With a more calibrated view under your belt, you’re in a better position to understand an individual consumer’s ability to afford your products or services, and ensuring you provide the right product for the right customer. At Experian, we invest in data and services which can help you to make better informed decisions with quick and easy access to an individual’s affordability. Read about our smart insights.

As the world acts to mitigate the impact of uncertainty, the need for businesses to up their resilience and adaptability will extend long beyond the trying times of today. Please feel free to contact us for your specific needs, and allow us to provide up-to-the-minute insights, solutions, and innovations.

Have you read Part 2 and Part 3 of our Commercial Resilience blogs?