We are committed to a sustainable business model that makes us proud of how we interact with our people, our customers and our marketplace. We believe that this is the only way to deliver long term business success for our company.
In the past, our sustainable business model has focused on four aspects – environment, workplace, community and market. In 2011, we expanded the market aspect into three critical focus areas – our impact on our customers, our innovation agenda and our increasing support of the microfinance community.
Environment
At Temenos we hold a firm opinion that sound Corporate and Social Responsibility is best enacted by blending together all elements of responsible business practice. We aim to help to protect the environment with an overarching aim of greener practices overall.
Throughout 2011 we expanded our use of video and audio conferencing still further to cut travel, and consequently our corporate carbon footprint, to a minimum. We have upgraded our internal systems to provide a new connected user experience transforming every communication into an interaction that is more collaborative, engaging, and accessible from anywhere. We have created a single interface that unites voice communications, instant messaging, audio, video, and web conferencing into a richer, more contextual offering which will be the foundation for a globally connected and centrally supported communication environment.
Workplace
At Temenos we pride ourselves in promoting a diverse and dynamic work environment.
Today we employ some 4,000 staff across nearly 50 different countries and 62 locations, with a huge diversity of culture and ethnicity. We mandate an equal opportunity approach for all, regardless of race, colour, ethnic or national origin, sex, marital status, disability, age and religious belief.
We have developed a range of complementary programmes focused on staff welfare, engagement and satisfaction, including:
• MyVoice – the company's staff engagement and satisfaction survey and action plan;
• StepAhead – the Temenos mentoring programme designed to develop high potential staff;
• Leadership Forum – a membership of senior managers across Temenos that reviews and sets direction across a myriad of different channels.
The common aspects of all programmes can be summarised as Communication, Development, Recognition and Performance Enablement. These four pillars represent the key areas of focus that drive commitment and productivity in the Temenos staff community. Furthermore, these programmes link directly and bring life to our value system to engender:
• Innovation,
• Teamwork,
• Quality,
• Customer Success,
• Accountability,
• Passion and Commitment.
The way in which we work is vital to us and we strive to achieve professionalism, discipline, integrity and a practical, people-centric approach. We adhere diligently to the policies articulated in our Temenos Business Code of Conduct that protects the interests of our customers, partners, staff and shareholders alike. The Code of Conduct is strengthened further through the complementary rules laid out in our Anti-Corruption and Bribery Policy and our Whistleblowing Policy. Taken together, we have a comprehensive set of guidelines and procedures that help our staff to govern correctly all of our activities associated with the work environment.
In 2011, we took our first significant steps in setting up an internal Recruitment Practice to position the Temenos brand and employee proposition directly in the marketplace. We succeeded in hiring over 185 people as a result of our targeted hiring campaigns that included direct hiring and staff referral schemes. Once on-board, our training programmes serve to enhance the skills and experiences of our people to promote empowerment and a sense of achievement and contribution. Our staff recognition programmes operate at a corporate and at a divisional level to capture the success of individuals and teams.
Community
The desire to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate by harnessing the passion of our people inspired a group of Temenos leaders to launch the Temenos Foundation. Over one hundred people have volunteered as ambassadors for 2012 to support this programme across the globe.
The Temenos Foundation is a one year programme to launch a support structure for our people to host events, raise funds and donate time in support of the non-profit community.
At Temenos, many of our people are already actively engaged in supporting our local communities and charitable organisations. Temenos is committed to helping organisations such as the Global Fund for Children and the School for Children with Hearing Disabilities in Bucharest, which provides much needed equipment and support for this disadvantaged children’s group, improving their prospects and quality of life. We also have an employee sponsorship programme where we match employee fundraising efforts for a number of events over the year.
The Foundation has also appointed team leaders from our different geographies and from each line of business to support local management and employees in their own efforts. Examples include Wear Red for Women – a day in our New York office to help raise awareness regarding women’s heart disease, a celebration of Women’s Day in India – raising funds for breast cancer and local charities, and working with the Make a Wish foundation in Singapore to make a difference to the lives of children with life threatening conditions.
The Temenos Foundation will build on our existing activities to achieve the goal of not only its founders but also the greater Temenos mission – making Temenos a great place for our people to do great work.
Customers
A key aspect of our sustainable business model is to create success for our customers to drive long term loyalty. Along with our focus on innovative product development, we are implementing a number of customer focused initiatives to enhance further the experience of working with Temenos.
We have launched the Temenos Customer Loyalty Programme, using the objective and industry-leading Net Promoter methodology. The programme promotes open dialogue with customers, using direct feedback to fuel tailored improvement activities, develop additional services and provide appropriate solutions for a changing market. Activities include refining delivery structures to support developing requirements, increasing the choice of support locations and investing in technology and process enhancements that underpin services delivered to customers.
Communication with customers around initiatives and activities covers a broad spectrum, from specific updates and newsletters to discussion groups and our annual Temenos Community Forum taking place in Barcelona, 22-24 May 2012. Reporting on progress, achievements and new services keeps customers informed of the best options for ensuring their success.
Organisational adoption of the customer-centric Net Promoter approach is fundamental to our overall programme of enhancing the customer experience and increasing customer loyalty. Customers have confirmed their support of the programme and are embracing the improvements that we introduce.
Innovation
Temenos has a long and proud tradition of innovation.
In recent years it has introduced the concept of a Model Bank and process-driven implementation to reduce the time it takes to implement a new core banking system, built a brand new component-based product definition engine which enables banks to create new products with more flexibility than ever before and been the first to launch a core banking operation in the public cloud, for microfinance. In 2011, Temenos launched and went live with our first customer running T24 in a Java Enterprise Edition application server. This runs the same source code that we supply in our C environment in Java, making T24 the only standard software core banking product that can run the same source code in both C and Java. This supports a significantly lower total cost of ownership for banks, and improves their experience of implementing, maintaining and using our products.
Commoditisation of banking products and services has increasingly shifted the competitive focus in the industry towards customer responsiveness. As such, the ability to adapt processes and launch products rapidly in line with lessons learned and in response to changes in consumer preferences, has become a fundamental requirement for banks and financial institutions. Industry players that can deliver to this increasingly demanding customer remit in a cost effective manner are differentiating themselves as leaders in their respective markets.
Innovation is integral to the way Temenos manages the lifecycle of its products. The Temenos roadmap process gives us access to a rich source of customer driven innovations that translate into generic enhancements to the product, not custom development.
Our strategic investment roadmap is carefully mapped against these trends and investments are already underway around:
• Cloud-based deployment,
• Easier to implement, ‘democratised’ business intelligence,
• Mobile banking and m-commerce,
• Extension of the existing application frameworks towards easier integration with third party ‘apps’, and
• Interaction with a rich variety of user agents.
Microfinance
Microfinance and community banking is an important, growing and profitable area of our business in which we continue to invest. Microfinance finds innovative ways to deliver low cost financial services to underprivileged communities. At Temenos we believe that by enabling access to finance in emerging markets, micro-entrepreneurs will find the means to finance their business aspirations and create employment for themselves but, most importantly, jobs and wealth for others in their community.
For 10 years Temenos has offered an easy to implement and managed version of our T24 core banking system to this market, T24 for Microfinance and Community Banking (T24 MCB). More than 110 microfinance institutions (MFIs) have used T24 MCB to reach a vastly wider customer base and provide essential financial services to micro-entrepreneurs and disenfranchised communities in over 50 countries. MFIs usually operate in small communities and many of the most effective remain very small and local. Over 360,000 are too small to operate an on-premise banking system in the traditional way. To reflect the demand of these smaller but growing institutions 2011 saw Temenos, in partnership with Microsoft Corporation, introduce T24 MCB delivered in the Cloud. Cloud delivery of core banking software enables a significantly lower cost of ownership, together with pre-defined banking services to reduce operational risk.
This was a landmark achievement, since T24 became the first core banking system to enable financial institutions with software in the public cloud; we believe that increasing adoption of this offering by MFIs will help millions more to lift themselves out of poverty and enjoy sustainable economic development benefiting themselves and their communities. Temenos also supports Microfinance Transparency (www.mftransparency. org), a non-profit organisation that leads the microfinance industry in product pricing transparency by promoting public disclosure, generally accepted responsible practice, and education.