Salomon Delivers over Wireless

Salomon Smith Barney, Citigroup’s corporate and investment bank, is providing its equity department staff with access to market data, e-mail and customer relationship management (CRM) functionality on its Global Equity Online Platform (GEO) over wireless devices. The capability will be extended to institutional clients later this year.

About 500 users in the equity department can access GEO from their wireless devices. GEO, which launched in 1997, provides global equity research, industry data, interactive tools and trading capabilities to Salomon’s institutional client base. It offers equities research; fundamental, technical, economic, strategic and quantitative research; and industry information plus news, quotes, calendars, charts and watch lists.

Salomon sees access to market data from mobile devices as a key factor, and it was keen to give its mobile staff access to content such as research. So it developed an application to read attachments on the BlackBerry. Steve Pikowski, head of Web development for the equity department, says, "We can forward any attachment and open it in PDF, html, Word, Excel, etc." This allows staff to access US Morning Calls, commentary and research on their wireless devices.

Salomon has also developed some CRM for its equity management. For example, the head of equity sales can take basic CRM information on its BlackBerry while on the road.

The bank is planning to roll out wireless access to GEO to its staff internationally later this year as well as offer it to its institutional clients. The application available to clients will also include trading ability. Pikowski says: "We want to make sure the application works well before extending it. This also gives us the opportunity to remain creative and continue deploying applications. We are paving new roads here."

SSB developed the wireless extension to GEO with wireless applications service provider SmartServ. The Connecticut-based company is customizing and hosting its flagship product, MobileMarkets, which routes data and delivers alerts and processes financial transactions for the financial services firm.

SmartServ also provides SmartServDocs to give Salomon employees access to PDFs, Word documents and Excel spreadsheets on their wireless devices. The product breaks down attached files, including files containing tables, into manageable pieces that are stored in a data repository. The information can then be accessed and displayed.

David Weil, SmartServ’s vice president of international sales, says, "The ability to open attachments on wireless devices is a key factor in giving users many of the same functionalities on their wireless device as they have on their desktop. The fundamental task of reading research is now available wirelessly and makes the sales staff incrementally more efficient."

Salomon’s applications have been developed for the BlackBerry but can be adapted for any device. SmartServ is working with other divisions within the organization globally that will require information delivered to other devices.