WHAT IS SOLUTIONS?
Thomson Reuters Markets division is creating a new global Solutions function to work alongside the sales and support teams in our Global Sales and Customer Service organisation.
The Global Sales and Customer Service (GSCS) organisation at Thomson Reuters includes the account managers, salespeople, trainers, technical support, help desk and customer administration staff and many others who directly and indirectly work with our customers to sell our products and services, install them and support our customers in using them.
The new Solutions team will include market and product specialists who will work, through a process of consultation with a customer, to deliver packaged solutions to meet business needs. They will seek to understand the customer’s business challenges which may be around running their business – such as automation, or in changing their business – such as creating competitive advantage. The Solutions team will then draw on Thomson Reuters Markets comprehensive range of products and services to create a package that uniquely meets the identified business challenge.
The Solutions approach is one of partnership; the full range of our expertise in financial markets will be available to the customer through conversations with our Solution sales specialists.
WHY IS IT BEING CREATED?
The new Solutions function reflects our continuing effort to ensure that our GSCS organisation is fully customer centric in all areas of its business. The new team's purpose is to work closely with customers, in a consultative manner, to deliver solutions created from the full range of Thomson Reuters Markets products and services, to meet specific business challenges.
HOW WILL IT BE ORGANISED?
The global Solutions team will consist of several teams who will each focus on a specific area of customers’ business workflow, such as sell side trading, the back office, investment management or advisory businesses. The teams will include solution sales specialists and pre/post sales consultants who will bring deep business, content and technical knowledge of specific aspects of our customers’ business workflow, along with their expertise of Thomson Reuters content and capabilities.
WILL SOLUTIONS OFFER CONSULTANCY SERVICES?
The focus of the Solutions team is on delivering the full value of Thomson Reuters Markets to our customers in a way that we have not been structured to deliver - until now. Our new approach includes providing professional services to advise customers and to integrate our solutions into their environment. Where we provide professional services, these will focus on integrating our solutions and supporting/training our customers to get the best value from them.
The remit of the Solutions team will not cover large scale business transformation and bespoke development projects that are typically central to the large consultancy practices in the marketplace.
WHEN WILL SOLUTIONS BE OPERATIONAL?
The Solutions team is currently being formed and will be operational by the beginning of 2010.
WILL MY ACCOUNT MANAGER CHANGE?
The Solutions team will work with, rather than replace, existing account management, so we do not anticipate usual points of contact being altered as a result of this change.
IS THE INTRODUCTION OF SOLUTIONS PART OF A BIGGER CHANGE?
Since Thomson Reuters was created in April of 2008 the focus of GSCS has been to deliver a seamless transition from the legacy Thomson Financial and Reuters sales and service organisations to the new Thomson Reuters business. We are now looking to the future to see how best to evolve our sales and service offer, so that we continue to anticipate and meet our customers’ changing needs.
We know that while our customers value our expertise, they are also looking for greater value and choice in the service and support offers that are made to them. We need to consider how we can help them get the very best from our product offerings, and how we can support them in a way that allows them to spend more time on other tasks.
We are therefore reviewing what we do and how we do it across all our customer touch points so that we can offer the best and most appropriate end-to-end experience to each of our customers – driven by their needs and what they value most.
The introduction of the Solutions function is a result of that review and is a significant step in our efforts to become a fully customer centric organisation.
SOUNDS LIKE SOLUTIONS MIGHT BE USEFUL FOR MY BUSINESS – HOW DO I CONTACT THEM?
The Solutions team is not yet in operation – this will happen at the beginning of 2010. In the meantime, your account manager is the best point of contact for any business needs you have. Your account manager will introduce the Solutions team to you as soon as it is available.
WHEN WILL I HEAR MORE?
Further detail on Solutions will be provided to our front line teams from October onwards along with the initial customer solution sets to be launched by our Enterprise division. Any enhancement in customer proposition and our go-to-market will of course be conducted with our customers’ needs at the forefront of our thinking and will be supported by thorough and extensive communications.
