In this video we explore the story behind CMB Monaco’s breakthrough. The private bank is renowned for its expertise in offering personalized financial solutions and wealth management services. Established in 1976, CMB Monaco has solid foundations, having been part of the Mediobanca group for 25 years.

Recognizing that profitable growth goes beyond cost reduction, CMB Monaco emphasizes the importance of understanding the value of its products and services from the customer's perspective. This customer-centric approach has been at the core of CMB Monaco's mission since its inception. CMB Monaco has undergone a comprehensive transformation journey led by CEO Francesco Grosoli and strongly driven by Chief Innovation Officer and Chief of Staff Olivier Pages. This commercial transformation, supported by Pharos, Oliver Wyman's software, has enabled the bank to effectively manage its commercial activities, monitor performance, and set targets for revenue and profitability. 

Voice Over

Private banking, wealth management, is all about understanding our clients’ needs, always putting the client at the center of our equation. That's the future of private banking.

Thomas Hofmann

Hello and welcome everybody. My name is Thomas Hofmann, and I'm a financial services partner at Oliver Wyman. Today, I'm delighted to have two very inspiring leaders with us. Let me first introduce you to Francesco Grosoli right next to me. Currently, he works as chief executive officer at CMB Monaco. We also have Olivier Pages with us today. Olivier currently works as chief innovation officer and chief of staff at CBM Monaco. Gentlemen, great to have you here, and thanks so much for taking the time.

Francesco Grosoli and Olivier Pages

Thanks for having us.

Thomas

Maybe to start with you, Francesco, the last five years since you took over CBM Monaco, you can say you made a big change, you made a big transformation. Can you help us understand your vision when you took over CMB Monaco? And what were the transformational steps that you went through?

Francesco

So, at CMB Monaco, we always have sustainable growth in mind, concentrating on growing better rather than simply getting bigger. For us as a private bank, it is important to prioritize profitable growth. To focus solely on cost reduction is rarely a winner. You need to understand the value of a product or service. In industries like private banking, same as with luxury goods, the value of a product extends beyond its cost of service. To truly understand the value of a product, it is essential to view it from the customer’s perspective. This involves identifying what clients truly value. That has been my mission from the very beginning.

Thomas

And Olivier, maybe you can help us understand a bit better how this worked in practice, the commercial transformation. What did you do? What were the steps? And also keep in mind that you were having a focus on profitable growth. It's not so easy to grow in a profitable way.

Olivier

Sure, Thomas. So, we understood that private banks should acknowledge the importance of recognizing and leveraging the value of products beyond their costs using pricing strategies effectively and adapting to changing customer preferences and market conditions. These are key considerations for driving sustainable and profitable business growth. We benefit from having access to huge amounts of data on our clients. So, it goes without saying that data-driven decision-making is crucial for private banks when it comes to pricing. By understanding our customers, we can make informed decisions about pricing. This approach ensures that pricing strategies are based on data and customer needs rather than assumptions. At CMB, we've always operated with a lean team and as a result, we didn't have the internal resources and expertise to effectively implement such an initiative. Working with Oliver Wyman helped us accelerate the transformation significantly, leverage the company's expertise on topics including pricing strategy and cost optimization, and also mitigate potential risk that generally comes along with big changes. I think we can say we truly went through a transformation. We changed a lot, and I think if I had to pick three main actions, I would say first, we implemented structural changes based on both external and internal information as our value proposition offering and pricing was clearly not aligned with our peers, and also, the value we provide to the client. Second, we created a robust approach to determine the cost to serve for every product, every service, every client, and link it to our commercial activities and internal organization. And third, I would say we established a fully digital and data-driven process to manage commercial activities. Today, Pharos is a core element to manage revenue and profitability daily, set targets, and monitor our performance.

Thomas

Just because you mentioned Pharos, can you spend a few seconds on elaborating what Pharos is? What it helps you do in your daily business, also to follow the commercial transformation in a profitable way?

Olivier

Sure. So, Oliver Wyman's Pharos is a software as a service solution that is used by our entire organization to take better commercial decisions. This web-based platform integrates seamlessly with core banking systems and is compatible with different IT environments. For bankers, Pharos provides essential KPIs for individual client books, enables economic impact simulation of pricing adjustments, and streamlines workflows for discount requests. For team leaders and market heads, Pharos offers detailed reports and critical KPIs at different levels and allows sales management to initiate revenue management tasks for individual clients. Last but not least, for IT risk and control functions, Pharos facilitates efficient implementation of fees and discounts, supports digital processes to reduce errors, and provides comprehensive documentation and history of discount requests.

Thomas

I think it's fair to say that Pharos is embedded in the entire organization, and it affects a lot of people and a lot of tasks on a daily basis. Maybe for you, Francesco. What do you think are the key impacts that Pharos generated for you?

Francesco

I think we implemented the commercial transformation with Pharos and I'm glad to say that this new approach has paid off for us both financially and non-financially. Let me give you three concrete examples on how Pharos and the work with Oliver Wyman has changed the way we work. So, number one, we have completely changed the approach to manage pricing and discounts. Number two, we empower our bankers with clear KPIs like price enforcement ratios or profit margins, dedicated dashboards to assess the performance for the entire book as well as individual clients, fully digital process to implement changes as well as provide them with support in the commercial decision making by our new sales management team. And last but not least, number three, we have also implemented different strategic changes to our organization as a result of our collaboration.

Thomas

Shifting gears. In the future. The question I have for you, Olivier, is, how do you see the future of CMB? What does it bring to you? What do you think?

Olivier

Well, Thomas, you know that the private banking industry is advancing quite rapidly, and CMB Monaco is well-positioned to succeed. So, we have a lot of work ahead of us. So, we are looking forward to exciting times.

Francesco

Very exciting times! If I may add a last point, this collaboration with Oliver Wyman has allowed CMB to make giant steps forward in the way we are working with our clients and in the way we are seeing the profitability of the bank.

Thomas

Fully agreed. So again, thank you so much gentlemen Francesco, Olivier, for taking the time today and sharing this very impressive transformation story with us. Thank you so much and thank you so much for watching.

In this video we explore the story behind CMB Monaco’s breakthrough. The private bank is renowned for its expertise in offering personalized financial solutions and wealth management services. Established in 1976, CMB Monaco has solid foundations, having been part of the Mediobanca group for 25 years.

Recognizing that profitable growth goes beyond cost reduction, CMB Monaco emphasizes the importance of understanding the value of its products and services from the customer's perspective. This customer-centric approach has been at the core of CMB Monaco's mission since its inception. CMB Monaco has undergone a comprehensive transformation journey led by CEO Francesco Grosoli and strongly driven by Chief Innovation Officer and Chief of Staff Olivier Pages. This commercial transformation, supported by Pharos, Oliver Wyman's software, has enabled the bank to effectively manage its commercial activities, monitor performance, and set targets for revenue and profitability. 

Voice Over

Private banking, wealth management, is all about understanding our clients’ needs, always putting the client at the center of our equation. That's the future of private banking.

Thomas Hofmann

Hello and welcome everybody. My name is Thomas Hofmann, and I'm a financial services partner at Oliver Wyman. Today, I'm delighted to have two very inspiring leaders with us. Let me first introduce you to Francesco Grosoli right next to me. Currently, he works as chief executive officer at CMB Monaco. We also have Olivier Pages with us today. Olivier currently works as chief innovation officer and chief of staff at CBM Monaco. Gentlemen, great to have you here, and thanks so much for taking the time.

Francesco Grosoli and Olivier Pages

Thanks for having us.

Thomas

Maybe to start with you, Francesco, the last five years since you took over CBM Monaco, you can say you made a big change, you made a big transformation. Can you help us understand your vision when you took over CMB Monaco? And what were the transformational steps that you went through?

Francesco

So, at CMB Monaco, we always have sustainable growth in mind, concentrating on growing better rather than simply getting bigger. For us as a private bank, it is important to prioritize profitable growth. To focus solely on cost reduction is rarely a winner. You need to understand the value of a product or service. In industries like private banking, same as with luxury goods, the value of a product extends beyond its cost of service. To truly understand the value of a product, it is essential to view it from the customer’s perspective. This involves identifying what clients truly value. That has been my mission from the very beginning.

Thomas

And Olivier, maybe you can help us understand a bit better how this worked in practice, the commercial transformation. What did you do? What were the steps? And also keep in mind that you were having a focus on profitable growth. It's not so easy to grow in a profitable way.

Olivier

Sure, Thomas. So, we understood that private banks should acknowledge the importance of recognizing and leveraging the value of products beyond their costs using pricing strategies effectively and adapting to changing customer preferences and market conditions. These are key considerations for driving sustainable and profitable business growth. We benefit from having access to huge amounts of data on our clients. So, it goes without saying that data-driven decision-making is crucial for private banks when it comes to pricing. By understanding our customers, we can make informed decisions about pricing. This approach ensures that pricing strategies are based on data and customer needs rather than assumptions. At CMB, we've always operated with a lean team and as a result, we didn't have the internal resources and expertise to effectively implement such an initiative. Working with Oliver Wyman helped us accelerate the transformation significantly, leverage the company's expertise on topics including pricing strategy and cost optimization, and also mitigate potential risk that generally comes along with big changes. I think we can say we truly went through a transformation. We changed a lot, and I think if I had to pick three main actions, I would say first, we implemented structural changes based on both external and internal information as our value proposition offering and pricing was clearly not aligned with our peers, and also, the value we provide to the client. Second, we created a robust approach to determine the cost to serve for every product, every service, every client, and link it to our commercial activities and internal organization. And third, I would say we established a fully digital and data-driven process to manage commercial activities. Today, Pharos is a core element to manage revenue and profitability daily, set targets, and monitor our performance.

Thomas

Just because you mentioned Pharos, can you spend a few seconds on elaborating what Pharos is? What it helps you do in your daily business, also to follow the commercial transformation in a profitable way?

Olivier

Sure. So, Oliver Wyman's Pharos is a software as a service solution that is used by our entire organization to take better commercial decisions. This web-based platform integrates seamlessly with core banking systems and is compatible with different IT environments. For bankers, Pharos provides essential KPIs for individual client books, enables economic impact simulation of pricing adjustments, and streamlines workflows for discount requests. For team leaders and market heads, Pharos offers detailed reports and critical KPIs at different levels and allows sales management to initiate revenue management tasks for individual clients. Last but not least, for IT risk and control functions, Pharos facilitates efficient implementation of fees and discounts, supports digital processes to reduce errors, and provides comprehensive documentation and history of discount requests.

Thomas

I think it's fair to say that Pharos is embedded in the entire organization, and it affects a lot of people and a lot of tasks on a daily basis. Maybe for you, Francesco. What do you think are the key impacts that Pharos generated for you?

Francesco

I think we implemented the commercial transformation with Pharos and I'm glad to say that this new approach has paid off for us both financially and non-financially. Let me give you three concrete examples on how Pharos and the work with Oliver Wyman has changed the way we work. So, number one, we have completely changed the approach to manage pricing and discounts. Number two, we empower our bankers with clear KPIs like price enforcement ratios or profit margins, dedicated dashboards to assess the performance for the entire book as well as individual clients, fully digital process to implement changes as well as provide them with support in the commercial decision making by our new sales management team. And last but not least, number three, we have also implemented different strategic changes to our organization as a result of our collaboration.

Thomas

Shifting gears. In the future. The question I have for you, Olivier, is, how do you see the future of CMB? What does it bring to you? What do you think?

Olivier

Well, Thomas, you know that the private banking industry is advancing quite rapidly, and CMB Monaco is well-positioned to succeed. So, we have a lot of work ahead of us. So, we are looking forward to exciting times.

Francesco

Very exciting times! If I may add a last point, this collaboration with Oliver Wyman has allowed CMB to make giant steps forward in the way we are working with our clients and in the way we are seeing the profitability of the bank.

Thomas

Fully agreed. So again, thank you so much gentlemen Francesco, Olivier, for taking the time today and sharing this very impressive transformation story with us. Thank you so much and thank you so much for watching.