How do you connect Finance, Sales and CRM through data? Find out in this interview with Risk Management DIrector Vladimir Novotny.
The global financial services industry is a complex landscape: a patchwork quilt of regulatory frameworks, technologies, and markets with very different customer needs. To be the most profitable, the most competitive, and the most efficient it can be, a financial services provider must find a way to navigate that complexity, and sales and finance teams hold pieces of the puzzle.
And putting the pieces together isn’t as easy as it may look at first glance. Sales and finance often operate their own data environments, completely siloed from each other, and are not aligned whatsoever.
At the heart of this misalignment lies a natural disconnect between sales and finance teams—they have different objectives and speak different languages. While the latter looks at financial data in great detail, focusing on transactions, solvency, creditworthiness, and CLV, the former fosters relationships, analyzes customer interactions and behavior, and focuses on how the services can address the customer’s pain points.
Is there a way to bridge this rift? Yes. There is a junction between the two worlds — a new layer — and this layer is the CRM (Customer Relationship Management System).
To talk about this complex topic, Keboola’s Martin Lepka, Senior Manager of Strategic Solutions, met with Vladimir Novotny, Director of Strategic Risk Management at HomeCredit International.
Below is the transcript of their conversation.
Martin: Hi, Vladimir. Thanks for agreeing to this interview.
Vladimir: No, problem. Happy to have another conversation with Keboola.
Martin: Let’s kick this off with a high-level question. What are the roles and goals of sales and finance teams, and how have they changed over the years?
Vladimir: In principle, it’s simple. Traditionally, sales have been responsible for acquiring new customers through direct channels like retail chains, mobile apps, and points-of-sale (POS). In recent years, partnerships with mobile phone manufacturers (such as Oppo, Vivo, and Samsung) and retail establishments have broadened their scope somewhat.
Finance teams used to be responsible mostly for the day-to-day functions of the business. Payables and receivables—cashflow, in other words. Now, the role of a finance team has shifted to being a partner for the business, providing crucial insights to make decisions.
Martin: I see. What are the main challenges of the teams?
Vladimir: There are many. But I think the most important is misalignment. Sales work off of a CRM without seeing the data from the finance team. And the finance team has all the numbers, but they lack context to know the underlying factors driving these numbers.
See what I’m getting at?
Martin: I think I do. They need common ground.
Vladimir: Exactly. The best example of how breaking down data silos can help both parties.
CRM is where two worlds meet, so to speak. Sales can enhance their outreach efforts, tailor communication, and take into account customer lifetime value (CLV), acquisition costs, and other metrics when allocating resources, while finance can take pricing and segmentation to a different level with customer behavior data and get valuable context for their numbers.
Martin: Would the teams be in charge of their own analytics, or would there be another layer in between?
Vladimir: It can be both. Both ways work — but one saves a lot of time and money. Companies have a lot of brainpower within the teams, and they can handle the analytics, but they often work in silos.
The ideal scenario is that when one team conducts an analysis (e.g., customer segmentation), other teams—like finance—can easily use the same analysis without duplicating efforts. To make this possible, companies need a common language—a shared set of definitions and a central glossary. Additionally, all analyses should be stored within a single, easily accessible platform that everyone can use. That is the glue that holds everything together.
“Easily accessible” is the difficult part. Most orgs rely on Data Warehouses (DWH), but they are slow, expensive, and are bottlenecked by IT. It’s simply not practical for everyday business needs.
So the goal is to have a user-friendly layer on top of the DWH, that business users can actually take advantage of, to work on analytics and push their KPIs without relying on IT to process their requests.
Martin: What would the goals and KPIs be in this case?
Vladimir: Let’s see… Of course, depends on the business case, but I would say product lifecycle tracking is key here: inflow, upselling, cross-selling, retention, attrition. Product targeting and segmentation insights. KPIs can be tied to campaign performance focused on these metrics.
More broadly, the teams could be involved in creating go-to-market strategies supported by sales forecasting and projections based on historical data. Predictive analytics rather than reactive.
Of course, that also positions finance and CRM teams to actually act in an advisory capacity across the organization to help make informed, data-driven decisions.
Vladimir: So Martin, what would a Keboola solution look like for this use case?
The Solution: From Simple to Complex
Martin: If seamless integration of financial data with CRM and Sales is the goal, in my view it can be broken down into simple steps:
If we look a bit into the future and add AI into the mix, I think there is another component that we can think of, and that’s a system of intelligence where tech, data, and people come together to drive growth.
Vladimir: Interesting.
Martin: So my vision for it goes something like this—a powerful, AI-native system of intelligence that seamlessly integrates all components of the business, allowing you to harness complexity rather than be overwhelmed by it.
The technology I am talking about should be reliable, scalable, frictionless, and at the same time invisible. Seemingly a part of every workflow, it should empower teams to focus on outcomes and not think about the IT side of things at all.
With this, people are free to do their jobs, you know?
Vladimir: Yes! I imagine having such intuitive tools that provide unrestricted access to real-time high-quality data exactly when needed can be huge for the right talent. If you are motivated and skilled, you want complex systems that help you cut through the noise, not work against you.
Being proactive in forecasting and responding to market demands requires speed and a degree of transparency. Collaboration should be open across teams.
Martin: What would your advice to business leaders be, considering what we’ve talked about?
Vladimir: Advice…[laughs] I am afraid I’m going to be stating the obvious here. You have to build for business growth. Put yourself in a position where business operations scale easily and naturally. It’s not only about operational efficiency— it's about enablement. Before, my analysts used to get the data from point A to point B, and that was it! Job was done. Now, with Keboola, we have this capacity to actually analyze and deliver business outcomes.
I would say look at your data strategies critically, invest in the building blocks, and once the capabilities are primed and ready to go — it will blow you away what your teams can do.
If you want to learn more about data management in finance, check out a detailed case study on Home Credit and Keboola Finance Intelligence Solution.
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