IN-DEPTH CASE STUDY

IronFX
Online trading giant
achieves impressive
gains with Sugar
IRONFX BOOSTS REVENUE, TRIMS COSTS AND ENHANCES
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION WITH SUGAR ABOUT IRONFX:

IronFX is a global leader in online

Minutes mean millions in financial markets, whether you are the trader or the brokerage
trading, specializing in trading CFDs
house.
(contracts for difference) on Forex,
Timing and speed are essential to success. spot metals, stocks and futures. IronFX
serves customers in 180 countries
So when IronFX, an international leader in online trading, wanted a robust, enterprise- on six continents in 45 languages. Its
grade Customer Relationship Management platform, it chose one that could shave time customer-centric strategy provides
off transactions by seamlessly integrating with other financial software while providing customers with 24/7 access to
exceptional security and ease of use. experts who speak the language
of the customer’s country and can
MEETING SOME TOUGH REQUIREMENTS immediately discern client needs
because of the company’s 360-degree
When IronFX set out to find a CRM platform, they began with a demanding set of customer view. A dedicated account
requirements. CIO Panayiotis Panayides wanted a workhorse that would handle process manager and local offices ensure the
automation, incorporate complex regulatory requirements and archive data without incurring personal service that differentiates
expensive developer time for stacks of new code. He also needed to sync seamlessly with IronFX in the trading market.
the company’s Forex trading platform, the IronFX revenue backbone, and other proprietary
applications unique to the IronFX business model.

When he tested for user interface and data migration, one Customer Relationship
Management solution stood out for functionality, ease of use and versatility in integrating
other applications: Sugar.

CHALLENGE: Implement a Customer Relationship Management solution that easily integrates with the sophisticated software of
the financial services industry, provides a 360-degree customer view, promotes digital document storage, is easily and efficiently
customized, and fosters process automation and regulatory compliance.

SOLUTION: IronFX chose Sugar for its ease of use, flexible deployment options, integration with global enterprise applications and
data sources, and in-depth customizability.

RESULTS: • Increased new account sign up from 250 per day to 4,000 per day by compressing screening and processing time from
30 minutes to less than one minute • Increased trading volume from 4,000 trades per day to more than 100,000 worldwide • Created
360-degree customer view, with country-specific information regarding trading regulations and regulatory compliance • Implemented
advanced automated leads routing based on geography, language and nature of campaign • Realized $100k annualized savings by
eliminating paper and copier costs through digital documentation • Enhanced safeguards against money laundering • Managed 1,300
percent employee growth over two years without losing focus

SugarCRM IRONFX - 2
Sugar provides IronFX with in-depth customer information that equips sales and marketing
with a panoramic view of customers: investing preferences, attitudes toward risk, long- “With Sugar, we get
and short-term goals, and a variety of other personal preferences.
an individualized view
“Nothing is more personal than investing, and Sugar helps us build customer confidence of each customer,
because our internal transparency means we can see the entire customer picture,”
says Panayiotis. “When the customer is successful in meeting goals, that means return
their preferences and
business and upsell possibilities for IronFX.” trading patterns.”
By hosting Sugar on-premise, which is not possible with many other CRM systems, Panayiotis Panayides,
IronFX avoided potential exposure and liability connected with cloud databases, which are
CIO, IronFX
more vulnerable to data security and privacy threats.

“The ability to host on-premise was a critical consideration for our customer’s data
security,” Panayiotis says.

With Sugar, IronFX has increased sales, enhanced customer relationships, increased
security, improved profitability and virtually eliminated printing and document storage
costs.

RAPID TIME TO MARKET

Implementing or changing a CRM system is a huge strategic decision for a maturing

business.

Before IronFX implemented Sugar, it had been through two CRM iterations: an in-house
platform that focused mostly on sales leads, and a Salesforce implementation that was
difficult to use and expensive to modify.

After data-migration and user testing, IronFX knew Sugar was the only choice -- for its
rapid, flexible deployment, ease of integration, usability and cost-efficiency.

Because the Sugar team worked closely with IronFX in the discovery phase, the Sugar
implementation took fewer than 90 days. Not in a single department, but throughout a
company that works on six continents and in 45 languages.

“Time to market was crucial for us in choosing a CRM. In order to keep up with the pace
of business growth, our data integrations couldn’t be time-consuming or expensive,” says
Panayiotis.

With Sugar, IronFX keeps pace with growth, executes more trades per day and makes the
signup process more convenient for customers.

After implementing Sugar, IronFX went from closing 4,000 trades per day to more than
100,000 worldwide. Its new accounts went from 250 daily to 4,000. Customer enrollment
was faster and smoother; trades were executed more quickly in every currency; and
deposits were verified and available to eager traders in minutes instead of hours.

SugarCRM IRONFX - 3
HIGHER QUALITY SALES LEADS
“We are producing
Being in the financial services business, IronFX has more stringent regulatory compliance
obligations than most businesses. It does the typical credit and financial history profiles on better-quality sales
new customers, but it also is required to make sure customers are not laundering money leads with a higher
through investment accounts.
potential for closing.”
Although the company had its own Anti-Money Laundering software prior to implementing
Panayiotis Panayides,
Sugar, the benefits of the credit checks and deposit verification weren’t being fully realized. CIO, IronFX
Sugar brought the divergent systems together and produced in-depth prospect profiles for
all the teams to see.

The effort paid off in improved sales productivity as well as in security.

2,500%
“By having our prospective client data cleansed and pre-screened, we are producing better-
quality sales leads with a higher potential for closing,” says Panayiotis, adding that the CRM
has trimmed the sales cycle.

“We can welcome new customers almost immediately and understand the needs of current
increase
in trading volume to
customers because our representatives have a complete view of the appropriate customer

100,000
data -- name, number of accounts, trading pattern and history,” he says.

With Sugar, customers get convenience and continuity, while IronFX staff enjoys a faster,
easier workflow with a higher percentage of closes on qualified prospects. trades/day

A CUSTOMER-FOCUSED CRM

While most CRMs still focus on managing sales, Sugar has matured into a business

1,600%
transformation engine that enhances revenue by providing companies with a deep
understanding of their customers.

The IronFX experience is just one of many Sugar success stories; its metrics tell a familiar
tale of the company-customer relationship enhancement.
increase
in new account creation when Sugar
Within months after deploying Sugar, IronFX began attracting new daily leads by the cut processing time from days to
hundreds via website and marketing campaigns that relied on Sugar as their backbone. milliseconds

“We were able to achieve daily growth from 500 to 1,000 and up to 3,000,” Panayiotis
says, explaining that just by instituting new business process in Sugar that focused on the
customer, IronFX created more leads and closed more sales.

SugarCRM IRONFX - 4
For example:

• Customers who inquired about opening new accounts were now being automatically “Sugar has surpassed
routed to people who spoke their native language. expectations in its
• Documents -- such as user instructions, regulatory compliance requirements and ability to handle the
legal agreements -- were made immediately available in the customer’s own language,
drawn automatically from the Sugar documents archive and delivered effortlessly. The work and integrate with
process eliminated hundreds of hours of manual translation, and made customers feel our other applications,”
more welcome.
Panayiotis Panayides,
• New signups, trading orders and deposits were being processed more rapidly, because CIO, IronFX
sales and portfolios were managed through a single system in Sugar, giving IronFX
account managers clear and timely information about accounts.

With Sugar’s enhanced customer-focused approach, IronFX improved business

development, saved time in translations and gained new customers.

BETTER FRONT- AND BACK-OFFICE INTEGRATION MEANS HAPPY

CUSTOMERS

Most business cultures include habits and techniques that evolve in response to needs.
Often, these workarounds or shortcuts become institutionalized. They may look right in the
short term, but in the long run can often impede change and lead to convoluted, inefficient
business processes.

IronFX had the familiar problems: standalone, fragmented systems that didn’t communicate
well, if at all. Pick a team -- accounting, sales, document translation, customer validation
and credit checks – all had outdated practices. Panayiotis and Lead Developer Christos
Ioannides attacked the margin-eaters first, by creating new, streamlined, automated
workflows.

“We knew we could do a lot of things with Sugar, but the workflows had to be first, that’s
where the highest return was,” says Christos.

Change was quick and effective.

Now, leads, previously assigned manually, are routed via Sugar to the appropriate regional
office the moment they arrive. New account signups are processed in “milliseconds,”
instead of days, says Panayiotis. Credit and anti-money laundering checks, which used to
occupy days and hold up deposits, are done in minutes.

Because Sugar is handling so much of the front-office work, the IronFX back office today
processes 20 times more customer applications and deposits each day, and feeds that
new, qualified customer information into Sugar. Clients are guaranteed they can start
trading within a few hours after signing up, and funding automation means deposits can be
verified and available for trades in one to two minutes.

SugarCRM IRONFX - 5
The increased transaction speed has accelerated IronFX’s daily closed trades past 100,000
– a record any business would envy. The velocity on closes has moved the company from
an international Top 20 brokerage into the Top 10, based on trade volume measured against
similar companies, says Panayiotis.

“When you are handling that kind of volume, you have to have a CRM capable of the load,
and Sugar has surpassed expectations in its ability to handle the work and integrate with
our other applications,” Panayiotis says.

A SWEET FUTURE FOR CUSTOMER LOYALTY

It is a given that it costs more to develop new customers than to retain current ones.

In the financial services industry, keeping customers can be more challenging than in most
industries. Sometimes bad Trading decisions can lead investors to switch to new financial
service providers.

A trading firm can’t prevent a trader’s market loss, but it can mitigate the damage by
influencing a trader’s perspective about doing business with the firm.

With Sugar, IronFX tracks customer goals and increases customer satisfaction and retention
by clearly understanding individual needs.

Some incentives are straight-forward--financial bonuses for new customers or rebates when
customers add money to existing accounts.

But in-depth customer information helps IronFX make things more personal, and even more
fun.

Because IronFX has a 360-degree view of its customers, it tailors contests -- lotteries,
trading matches, highest returns competitions – and pinpoints a customer’s interests. World
Cup tickets for the Manchester United fan; supercars for the auto racing buff; financial
bonuses for the straight-ahead investor.

“We can do this today because Sugar helps us know our customers. With our value-added
service and personal touches, we keep customers because Sugar helps us know our
investors,” says Panayiotis.

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CUSTOMIZATIONS AND INTEGRATIONS

INTEGRATIONS

• SAP & Client Portal: Enables full automation of back office functions around client and account management, including review and
approval of funding related records

• Meta Trader 4: Forex trading platform integration – real time view of trading activity through Sugar

• SendGrid: Handles unique email list and distribution; automatically assigns leads/clients to emailing list using configuration modules

• WorldCheck: Database used to validate the prospective trader

CUSTOMIZATIONS

Dynamic lead assignment across 1,200+ sales staff, based on multiple filters/rules through business rule automation

Proprietary Anti-Money Laundering Module

Proprietary translation form module with side-by-side view of translation form and document.

Proprietary automatic trading account processing using custom configuration modules

• Automatic trading server selection (account opening) based on business rules (configurable at run time)

• Automatic processing of additional accounts

Fully customizable and interactive ticketing system built on Cases Module.

• Status sequence control mechanism that allows only pre-defined statuses to be available for specific users types and case
statuses

• Sub-ticket mechanism that automatically creates sub-cases from status sequences. Able to control closing or status change of
parent ticket when sub-ticket is closed

• Automatic ticket creation and assignment

• Custom workflow engine with complex rules

• Quick view and edit

• Custom workflows that integrate business logic across modules to allow automatic processing of records

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CS-07-23-2015