finance
monthly
Personal Finance. Money. Investing.
Contribute
Newsletter
Corporate

Technology innovations have transformed the nature of financial services by highlighting long-standing issues with UX and UI in the capital markets industry. It’s an ongoing revolution which has enabled a full spectrum of new services that optimise the customer experience.  

 

A good example are organisations providing FinTech solutions that use APIs to operate with customer data. The APIs extend the organisation’s existing capabilities and improve customer experience by delivering tailored services.  

UX Challenges for Financial Organisations

One of the biggest challenges impeding progress is that financial institutions are still more focused on their products instead of the customer experience. They struggle to realise that evolving technologically is at the heart of efforts to serve customers better.  

 

Another issue that financial firms face is that many of their systems are legacy applications that are too expensive to rewrite and replace. Often, they are left to operate alongside cutting-edge third-party software solutions without any means to communicate with them. This causes the user to interrupt their workflow and switch between various systems to complete a task.  

 

Organisations that can’t solve workflow problems face the risk of employees moving to other firms with more modern platforms that allow them to execute tasks quicker and achieve better results for their clients. This is currently a growing issue for hedge funds where portfolio managers are moving away from inefficient infrastructures with all their clients.  

 

FinTech is the way forward. By digitising operations, organisations will not only reduce costs and maximise productivity. Collaborating with financial technology innovations will also lead to a significant shift in the way customers are approached and will ultimately deliver improved customer experiences. Implementing new technology will mean establishing trust with increasingly digital-savvy customers by utilising their demands for “instant” service in today’s fast-paced world. Many processes will become completely automated, with systems ready to fit into a world of artificial intelligence. Acquiring new customers will mean providing a financial product based on a better, faster, and smarter user experience.  

 

FinTech is the way forward. By digitising operations, organisations will not only reduce costs and maximise productivity. Collaborating with financial technology innovations will also lead to a significant shift in the way customers are approached and will ultimately deliver improved customer experiences.

The Buy Side Challenge

The investment process often involves navigating through a myriad of applications and fragmented data, leading to switching apps and copy/pasting between them. Such an inefficient workflow can lead to critical errors, operational risks, and low performance for the buy side financial organisations in the long term.  

 

With increased regulatory pressure and customers that expect highly personalised and engaging experiences, the pressure on the buy side to reduce repetitive operations and deliver cohesive workflows is immense.  

The Sell Side Challenge

Traders need to access client data fast. Trading software that allows them to quickly analyse data and perform research could significantly improve the fast-paced trading environment. An agile workflow solution will eliminate redundant steps and ensure smooth and efficient trading processes for sell side financial organisation. 

 

Businesses on a mission to grow and prepare for the future need to focus their efforts on solid digital onboarding of both employees and customers. This means ensuring an innovative digital experience, automating more of their processes, and improving existing workflows. 

Benefits of Prioritising User Experience in Financial Services

Digitalisation continues to scale across all sectors of the financial services industry. To keep up with customer demand, financial institutions need to consider adopting an enterprise approach to streamline workflows. The best way to achieve this is through intelligent software that allows for an integrated, simplified, and accelerated user experience.  

 

For instance, buy side and sell side financial organisations can benefit from a fully integrated desktop environment that ensures minimum training effort, less multitasking, and faster responses. Integrating applications into a unified workflow allows professionals to make better informed decisions and get to market faster. By syncing up disparate processes and applications in a unified desktop integration platform, financial institutions can simplify and standardise internal operations to reduce risk and respond to the demands of their customers quicker and more seamlessly than ever.  

 

By syncing up disparate processes and applications in a unified desktop integration platform, financial institutions can simplify and standardise internal operations to reduce risk and respond to the demands of their customers quicker and more seamlessly than ever.  

FinTech Solutions that Solve the UX Problem

Desktop integration platforms can help financial institutions build applications with user experience in mind and transform the way they work. One of them is Glue42 - an interoperability provider, which ensures flawless integration between existing in-house and third-party systems, regardless of the language they are written in. It synchronises applications so they can seamlessly interact with each other in real-time, reducing the number of times users need to copy/paste their way through different apps.  

 

The Glue42 desktop integration platform is FDC3-enabled to improve productivity and cut development costs. All its services are available through open APIs such as app directory, advanced window management, notifications and multi-stack interop. Glue42 helps organisations build a more efficient workflow with user experience in mind.  

A wide range of apps is already being used in day-to-day life. Institutional trading platforms, direct access brokers, and HFT-investment tools expand their capabilities via API connections from AI backend systems. Companies with a significant footprint in the artificial intelligence sector have shown remarkable evolution and strength in the financial markets. Investors who have chosen the right stocks in the early stages of AI made meaningful profits partaking in their growth.

AI Revolutionises The Economy

Whether in the investment or energy sector, legal advice, retail or elder care, the areas in which artificial intelligence systems can be used are numerous and broad. Consequently, companies and analysts assume that artificial intelligence will revolutionise the economy of the 21st century.

AI has become a fundamental everyday companion for many people. For example, many use it to access buildings and data centres or digital facial recognition on their newest smartphones. Internet search results are getting better and better by picking the best results for a relevant query out of multi-millions of potential websites. In addition, voice assistance and translators become faster, and spell checkers in e-mails are more accurate than ever before.

The chances are that millions of people will be transported by autonomous driving cars soon. For their use, test automobiles are in operation worldwide. They collect "driving experience" over millions of miles and collect the essential data for self-learning algorithms.

Investors In AI-Focused Companies

Companies with a substantial focus on artificial intelligence see rapid gains on stock markets like the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. Tech giants such as Microsoft Corporation, Nvidia Corporation, Alphabet Inc., and Apple Inc. have seen significant gains between March 2020 and December 2021. They all have in common that their services are used with existing products without selling something new to a customer.

Microsoft Windows is still by far the leading operating system on P.C. Alphabet's Google search is implemented on billions of devices and used by billions of users around the world every day. Nvidia's graphic cards are part of most gaming computers, and Google's Android-based devices dominate the smartphone market along with Apple's iOS systems. Those technologies play a crucial role in advancing artificial intelligence, whether Alexa, Cortana or Siri.

Nevertheless, caution is required, like with any investment. Being an industry leader in a growing market does not automatically ensure unlimited success without risk.

Companies can fail despite good ideas. Facebook, for example, changed its company philosophy in late 2021 by re-branding the company name from Facebook to Meta Platforms. with the focus on the growing Metaverse. This new company strategy is not a guarantee of success, and first growth projections confirm that the future growth is expensive while the user base is shrinking for the first time. Facebook goes with the Metaverse trend, and people tend to confirm that this is a real trend, but it might take decades before actual results become visible in balance sheets.

Therefore, buying individual shares of companies focusing on AI can lead to meaningful profits and extensive losses. Regardless of the prevalent company strategy, current market stake and future expansion of the digital transformation.

In general, investments need explicit expertise to determine the best possible companies worth an investment. The risk of investing in specific assets is significantly higher than for mutual funds that invest broadly and are actively managed by investment professionals.

AI Company Investments

Investing in specific shares of a company requires insights into the most key company fundamentals and ample knowledge about the stock market in general. Many free stock trading platforms provide free information about company metrics like:

In addition, numerous websites also supply users with stock charts, technical analysis features and portfolio tracking functionalities. But, in the beginning, investors have to learn how to interpret those company fundamentals correctly. Comparisons relative to other companies in peer groups and other sectors are also meaningful.

A small fraction of investors prefer day trading volatile growth stock with big stakes in AI technologies. They utilise tools to profit from minimal stock market movements. Such tools often focus on high-speed trade execution, extensive charting capacities and excellent customer support. Some of those platforms also use AI to find the best tradable stocks.

Day traders often trade 1,000 shares or more at once to achieve a high cumulative profit. Interestingly, a day trader holds 100% cash overnight without investment exposure. Therefore day trading is entirely independent of the company's future potential and business success.

Day trading is one of the most speculative investment strategies and demands a massive time responsibility. That's why most investors choose long-term investments by using instruments like ETFs.

Diversified Portfolios

Investing in artificial intelligence-focused mutual funds or exchange-traded funds is often considered a much safer alternative to day trading. With an accelerating digitisation trend, some investment funds focus entirely on artificial intelligence to benefit from the value driven by this technology. Their broadly diversified portfolios help investors partake in the evolution of AI companies worldwide.

Diversification of investments by investing in ETFs is a great alternative to day trading AI stocks. The key benefits are:

Conclusion

The artificial intelligence business has immense potential, and it will be one of the pivotal disrupting industries in the 21st century. As a result, investors can now participate in the future growth of AI in numerous ways. Retail brokers and more specialised HFT brokers continuously expand their capabilities and enable investors to connect AI systems to their order routing systems. Algorithms take care of the order routing and trade execution process.

Long-term investing via AI-focused exchange-traded funds has some limitations in controlling the company diversification within the ETF but requires only a little time commitment from the investor. In contrast, investing in stocks is an excellent way to diversify a portfolio directly. Still, it requires comprehensive knowledge of financial market behaviour and insights into key company financials. Yet, day trading volatile stocks allows to stay on cash overnight, but it is only an option for professionals and demands the highest time commitment.

The fast transformation has significantly increased productivity, employee morale, customer satisfaction, and business operations. Today companies can link multiple departments and activities through a single portal. It's easy to operate primary tasks without significant knowledge or professionalism. Companies either hire or outsource IT practitioners in traditional business operations to create business applications.

Businesses that opt to buy off-shelf systems/applications must either adapt to the new system or change their operations. Hiring professionals is quite expensive, leading to many business failures. Today No-code software has introduced new advanced business processes that are easy to adapt and utilise.

No-code system

What is no-code? Why is it important? No-code system is a digital solution for many businesses globally. In layman's thinking, it's an adaptive system that turns basic users and employees into citizen developers. Anyone with basic IT knowledge can utilise no-code software to create significant business apps.

No-code is an advanced technology that helps businesses create applications without hand-coding or traditional coding. The system offers visual graphic features that require a drag and drop process to build an app. The process requires a few days or hours to develop a complete application. It's possible to utilise a single app for multiple tasks or departments.

No-code systems are easy to operate, unlike hand-coding, which needs IT, professionals, or programmers. The coding process is practical and uses visuals for simplicity. Companies should implement no-code platforms to enhance their business operations. This builds the employee's morale as they are involved in the creation process.

No-code systems are pretty involved as they offer the chance to customers to view their needs. Organisations willing to invest in no-code software should get feedback from customers before purchasing a no-code platform. Note each platform is developed with unique features to suit every business needs.

Essential features on no-code platforms

1. Drag and drop interface

The drag and drop feature is the core pillar that allows basic users to develop apps quickly. The feature requires citizen developers to drag and drop application features to create a business app. No hand coding or coding knowledge is necessary to operate the feature.

2. Data connections

No-code systems are designed with different features; some offer database and server systems while others don't. No-code system without the database system allows users to incorporate their preferred database. The no-code software helps in data management and will enable organisations to process their data efficiently.

3. Visual modelling

No-code software has visual graphics features preinstalled to help citizen developers build apps fast. Since the platform has all tools defined with clear images, no creation efforts are required.

4. Easy integration

Modern businesses can quickly implement no-code software on their systems. The software is designed to work with different business software without shifting the normal functionalities. Organisations need to review the type of no-code platform before purchasing or integrating with the existing system. Note each system is unique and provides different features according to business needs.

Benefits of no-code development platforms

1. It saves time and increases agility

Through the pre-installed features, no-code platforms are easy to operate. Citizen developers can create business apps within short durations. No-code systems are easily integrated with another system to offer automation. This saves time through automated tools and increases business agility. Employees get ample time to venture into new projects, which increases productivity.

2. Save resources/cost-effective

Seeking IT developers or coding professionals is quite challenging and costly, especially for startup businesses. Companies outsourced programmers to help in coding and building business applications in the past. A single application took months to develop; it was time-consuming and expensive. Today, businesses can utilise their in-house employees to build an application through no-code platforms. There is no extra cost in building or hiring experts for the development process.

3. Accommodative/collaborative

Both customers and companies have a fair share of no-code development platforms. The platform is inclusive, giving customers the chance to provide feedback. The organisation uses the information to develop an application that aligns with the needs. Basic IT users have the privilege to use advanced technology to build apps.

No-code accommodates all users besides their education level and skills. The visual modelling features are practical, giving citizen developers a chance to establish business apps. The software doesn't eliminate the need for IT professionals. However, it enhances the skills that they implement in the business. IT programmers can help with security details, creating a unique and safe application in the organisation.

4. Increase productivity

No-code increases agility, which in turn increases productivity. The automation process in most business tools helps businesses conduct more services without strain. The software helps increase revenue by allowing employees to utilise technology for their operations. This increases their morale, giving them a reason to produce more.

5. Easy to modify

Unlike traditional coding, which required users to build a new app for different tasks. The No-code system is easily modified to suit the current need. Organisations can use a single app for various services or departments. The developers can change the app anytime without altering business systems. The ease of modification reduces the need to build multiple apps for every task. The no-code platform modification process will require the drag and drop features to create the preferred application quickly.

Conclusion

No-code is the propelling power for many businesses today. The software offers quality features to suit every user regardless of IT knowledge. It's cost-effective, simple, and valuable for companies. No-code simplicity is accompanied by automation, thus improving business operations. Organisations need to invest in good no-code services to attain the best business results. It’s advisable to check on no-code features that align with every business aspect. 

Digital transformation for businesses includes introducing new technology and software, as well as adapting organisational structures and mindsets to the modern digital culture. What are the potential benefits that make digital transformation so valuable, and are there any downsides?

The Need For Digital Transformation

The ever-evolving digitisation of our society is no new phenomenon. Our hobbies, social lives, education, and jobs are shifting more and more into virtual spaces. While many of us still remember life before the internet as it is today, the new generation of digital natives grew up with the internet and all its perks and pitfalls. They are navigating modern technology with ease akin to breathing.

Naturally, young people are a huge target market and the newest or next additions to the workforce. When trying to appeal to them or fully make use of their potential, any business – whether it is part of the IT sector or not – is forced to adapt and use modern tools such as management software and apps. And yet many small- to mid-sized companies still struggle with the implementation of digital strategies and digital transformation is one of the biggest risk factors in the eyes of directors, CEOs and senior executives.

The Upside Of Digital Transformation

Many traditionalists are still wary of digital solutions to long-established methods. They are getting in the way of their own company’s potential to work more effectively and cut costs. Digital staff management tools, such as online staff rota management, allow employees easy and intuitive ways to take part in their schedule planning.

Even a simple tool like this can have unexpected impacts:

The Risk Factors Of Digital Transformation

If so many executives consider digital transformation a risk factor, that means there must be a potential for negative consequences when introducing digital strategies to a business. Business owners who still refuse to commit to digitalisation fear the fallout of their digital transformation efforts failing. What exactly are the negative effects they worry about?

Conclusion: Maximised Efficiency, Minimised Risks

Digital transformation is no longer an option but a necessity. Modern software and the accompanying technology are important for companies to remain competitive and gain attractiveness in the eyes of the next generation. When used correctly, digital assets optimise a businesses’ efficiency. Automated processes, intelligent software and connected workflows can minimise the time wasted on menial tasks. Happier employees, efficient planning and reduced mistakes maximise a company’s potential.

Potential risks can be avoided with a bit of careful consideration. An employee’s willingness to learn and use new tech can be increased. There needs to be enough time set aside for appropriate amounts of schooling. Additionally, the acceptance of the new tool will rise when it’s made clear how it can positively affect both the company and the employees themselves.

Expert advice and software reviews will help to find the right solution for the specific company. Most governments offer financial aid for small businesses' digitisation efforts. These are often combined with educational support. This kind of coaching can help to choose the right tech and implement it smoothly.

Michael Worledge, Head of Financial Services Research at Harris Interactive explains what brands should know about digital transformation in financial services.

Faced with layoffs, job uncertainty, and an economy in flux, consumers worldwide have become far more conscious. They report thinking more about saving and budgeting than they have in the past, and many have prioritized sound investments with well-known providers. At the same time, their once-low confidence around spending is seeing a slow and steady increase.

Recent data shows that consumers are at a point where they’re ready to spend—and save—more. But what about how they’re doing it, and the role that digital financial management plays?  

Let’s look at where consumers are with this digital transformation right now, according to real-time data from our UK Financial Services Sentiment Indicator tracker and our wider Global Barometer. This is especially important for brands because the more understanding and data you can put behind the answer, the better informed your decisions become—and the lower the risk attached to it.

Financial management is forever changed with a rise in “digital first.”

The financial landscape is changing in terms of consumer engagement with internet banking, online payments, digital wallets, and other elements surrounding the transition from traditional to digital financial management.

Digital options play a much more prominent role in normal life than they ever have before. Between the pandemic limiting the ability to visit branches in-person and the resulting pressure on call centres, many have decided that the most remote option is safest. 

As a result:

Nearly half of consumers have been influenced by the digital transformation so much in the past year that their behaviour has changed significantly—and, most likely, permanently.

Different age groups show different comfort levels with managing finances digitally

The pandemic forced the adoption of digital alternatives to in-person banking across the board. But just because digital financial management has become far more common doesn’t mean that it has been as easily adopted for every demographic. 

While more than half of consumers ages 55+ say they’re comfortable using self-serve, online-only channels to manage their finances, they show more hesitation over other aspects of online money management, including:

Still, 40% of respondents from each of the three age groups studied here all agree on the importance of having physical bank branches—an area where the 55+ demographic is right on par with those ages 18-54.

Digital wallets are becoming more popular

It’s important to remember that consumers can use digital in their daily lives without having to log into providers’ apps and websites. This is evident at checkout, where more consumers are reaching to pay with their phones instead of their wallets. That’s because digital brands are connecting with customers through the digital wallet, as with Google Pay, Apple Pay, and more. 

In fact, the data shows that digital wallets are becoming a way of life:

The digital wallet has become a key part of life as smart technology becomes the new normal in activities, financial management, and even in communication via apps like WhatsApp.

Regardless of digital options, consumers support brands that align with their values

Values are of core importance to today’s buyers; they want to know what the companies they’re supporting stand for. This is so crucial, in fact, that:

Regardless of providing digital options that offer convenience, security, and peace of mind, it’s more important than ever for brands to stand for something and to clearly and continually communicate this to customers. Only a quarter of consumers say they’ll keep supporting brands whose priorities don’t align with their own.

As the data shows, digital is here to stay—and its importance continues to gather momentum across countries and profiles. Brands must stay on top of these ever-evolving trends to make lasting, meaningful connections with their target audience.

To learn more about how you can aid your New Product Development, download our latest eBook guide here. 

Keith Pearson, Head of Financial Services GTM at ServiceNow, explains the importance of hyperautomation for financial services.

As financial services look to accelerate their digital transformation plans in a post-COVID world, they must quickly recognise the importance of hyperautomation and the benefits it provides. In April, Gartner predicted that the worldwide market for technology that enables hyperautomation will reach $596.6 billion in 2022. Hyperautomation is no longer a choice, rather a condition of survival.   

What is hyperautomation? 

Hyperautomation brings together capabilities including machine learning, process mining, RPA, API integration and intelligent workflow orchestration to replace high levels of complexity with 80%+ automation of the delivery of services to customers. 

The key to success is actionable integrated data. Fragmented data and isolated systems are the enemies of hyperautomation, and data lake technologies don’t put the data that they hold into the hands of your employees in the workflow. The ability to integrate rapidly to modern and old systems, bringing together process-related data into one place where intelligent automation technologies can be effectively applied is the key to delivering actionable automated workflows and successful outcomes. Too many financial services organisations continue to deploy a ‘sticking plaster, hybrid-technology approach’ to achieve their automation goals, inadvertently creating yet more technical debt and islands of data.

IT leaders must therefore recognise that hyperautomation is crucial to achieving business outcomes. It empowers people and businesses to delegate the authority of decision making to intelligent applications, physical robots and software service assistants. Once technology that enables hyperautomation has been implemented then financial services organisations will begin to enjoy tangible benefits.   

Automating repetitive tasks 

The financial services industry is full of complex processes, transactions and payments connecting customers, buyers, traders, regulators and other stakeholders. Automation is crucial for firms to deliver a seamless customer experience, but legacy systems complexity often leaves high levels of human-dependent process management, while traditional business process management technologies, RPA and low code app development continue to contribute to a sub-optimal fragmented systems landscape. In these firms, engineers have traditionally wrestled with complex architecture and integrations trying to join systems that were never designed by vendors to work seamlessly together. 

Hyperautomation can empower these organisations and reduce manual input while ensuring high-quality results on front and back-end processes. The combination of RPA with ML and AI is the core enabling technology behind hyperautomation and the reason behind its intelligent automation. It allows companies to automate in places that weren’t previously possible, namely undocumented processes that rely on unstructured data inputs.  

For instance, if a bank’s customer requires a refund of a direct debit that should not have been paid, they contact the bank to recover the funds from the vendor. Hyperautomation streamlines the tasks involved within this request by automating data validation, making the processes quicker, more consistent, and less prone to error. Not only will this speed up digital processes but removing human intervention will dramatically reduce operating costs in the longer term. By combining hyperautomation technologies with redesigned operational processes, businesses are predicted to lower operational costs by as much as 30% in the next three years. 

Boosting customer satisfaction  

Customer satisfaction poll on tabletStreamlining back and front office processes will inevitably lead to a much more efficient customer experience. Removing human intervention not only speeds up the delivery of customer requests, such as refunds or complaints but also eliminates any chance of human error through automated workflows.  

Firms that embrace hyperautomation can create a simplified platform environment that is natively integrated, integrates quickly to other systems and combines the best that humans and machines have to offer in the ultimate delivery of service to customers. They monitor and adapt their processes in real-time, evolving quickly depending on changing customer and business demands. Bringing data together in one place has the added benefit of effective fraud monitoring, a single view of the customer and the ability to apply predictive analytics to spot patterns and avoid issues before they occur.

Hyperautomation can also create customised products, tailored services and highly responsive omnichannel customer services that are available 24 hours a day. By removing the need to do cumbersome, repetitive tasks, employees can focus their time on tailoring their products and services for their customers. Additionally, more time and opportunities can be opened up for innovation and digital transformation, which are crucial components for organisations to stay competitive and agile, particularly amid the pandemic.  

Real-time data analytics 

If business agility is the marker of success, then real-time data analytics is the key to this. Businesses often fail to identify where their inefficiencies lie due to a lack of data analysis, which is particularly frustrating in the financial sector given the vast amount of transactional data available.  

Hyperautomation can transform financial services by helping IT decision-makers unleash the true potential of data by deriving insights that enables them to understand current business trends and make predictions about future outcomes. This means they are well placed to refine their automated processes and make the necessary course corrections. Companies can therefore adapt in real-time and evolve depending on the changing consumer landscape.  

Furthermore, banks can utilise the AI algorithms and ML technologies built into hyperautomation to efficiently monitor all monetary transactions and proactively identify any fraudulent activities. Machine learning predictive models built with advanced modelling techniques can predict the probability of fraudulent transactions, minimising risks for customers.  

The future of automation 

Given the abundance of operational business benefits available, it’s difficult to overstate just how important hyperautomation will be for financial services over the next few years. Rather than just automating manual tasks, it will take a company’s ecosystem of technologically advanced tools and merge them to create a truly interconnected workflow solution.    

Hyperautomation was created so that low-value tasks can be performed with automation tools, advanced AI and ML, so that outputs can be created automatically and run productively with virtually no human input. It is designed to grow alongside a business and will create a working ecosystem that is constantly educated, agile and ready to utilise data and insights for quick and accurate decision-making. As financial companies look to remain competitive in a post-COVID world, it has never been a better time to embrace the future of intelligent automation.  

Maveric has been singularly focused on banking domain for over two decades, providing managed services and solutions across data, digital, core banking and quality engineering. The firm has over 1800 technology specialists and a global presence spanning across 15 countries with regional delivery capabilities in Bangalore, Chennai, Dubai, London, Mexico, Poland, Riyadh and Singapore.

Mr Reddy started his professional journey in management consulting and has worked with organisations such as World Bank, American Express, Reckitt and Coleman, Arthur Andersen, Ernst & Young, Polaris Software, AT Kearney, NDDB and the Government of India in the areas of business strategy, people management, change management and transformational leadership.

How can Maveric help banks with open banking and digital transformation solutions?

Financial institutions have been challenged with decreasing revenues and increasing costs in a landscape marked by new-age banks and FinTechs. Maintaining leadership and retaining competitive advantage in this landscape calls for transformation at unprecedented speed across:

However, every transformation journey, be it open banking or digital, is unique. What’s common is the need for speed and the enormous risk associated with getting it wrong. Successful transformation calls for a trusted partner with a deep understanding of the domain, right mix of technical competencies, edge building strategy and accelerated delivery. We achieve this through the following:

insights into customer challenges, pain points – thinking beyond what they need today to what they need in the future.

In what ways has the pandemic affected Maveric Systems over the last few months?

Globally, we are seeing multiple trends shaping the banking landscape.

Although banks had a digital strategy in place, making it a reality through the adoption of technologies and platforms was slow. The pandemic has acted as a catalyst for the growth of digital banking - driving closures of branches, call centres and increasing customer engagement across digital channels. For those with digital solutions in place, it has been a test of digital infrastructure for increased workloads. Further, automation and the adoption of new tech stacks to enable contactless banking is on the upward path.

Both banks and regulators are now becoming more open to moving to the cloud. They are positive about the mobility, scalability, flexibility and capacity of the cloud while being a bit cautious about the security aspect.

The engagement time frames have shortened drastically, driven mainly by the need to go to market faster and with solutions. The timelines have shrunk threefold meaning that the transformation programs which were supposed to be completed in a year’s time are now being pushed to go live in a quarter. These further translate to accelerated MVP, continuous quality across the development cycle, adoption of CI/CD and DevOps technologies.

Banks are increasingly adopting data and analytics solutions for updating scenarios, forecasting trends and changing risk models in light of the pandemic. Data models are also being used to fine-tune the customer persona and sharpen individualised offerings instead of using demographic segmentation for banking products.

Offshoring has been gaining traction especially with banks from the Middle East who were not off-shore friendly earlier. Several banks in APAC are re-evaluating their site strategy and opening their projects for India based delivery rather than delivering it from APAC cities such as Singapore.

In line with these, we have been seeing our customers and prospects accelerate their investments in beefing up the technology infrastructure. Accordingly, there is a strong uptake for our services and solutions across digital, data, core banking and QE. Our accelerators and frameworks have been seeing increased acceptance among the customers on account of their ability to bring down costs, enhance efficiencies and achieve the speed that is much needed by banking organisations.

On the downside, the ticket size of these implementations has reduced. What was a multi-million, multi-year contract before the pandemic is now being broken into smaller contracts with faster turnaround and fastest possible go-lives.

Digital transformation now needs to focus more on experience engineering rather than solely delivering solutions for the customers.

Globally, the world is undergoing a digital transformation, and despite the pandemic’s impact on all of our lives, this digital acceleration should remain something financial services companies continue working towards. What’s your take on this and how can Maveric assist organisations in this regard?

 I believe, digital acceleration will remain a priority for the financial services industry and it will only see tremendous growth in the days to come. With the exponential increase in consumers moving towards digital channels, in light of accessibility restrictions to legacy channels, creating and managing superior experiences across channels and touchpoints has become paramount. Digital transformation now needs to focus more on experience engineering rather than solely delivering solutions for the customers.

Further, I also feel that the hype cycle around digital is very active, even more in the current context. Banks, weary from digital discussions and failing initiatives, are often lulled into yet another misadventure, with yet another acclaimed vendor, seeking to push early-stage experiments onto the bank. At the core of a successful digital program should be an honest effort to transform every customer journey. The focus must shift from break-through technology solutions to break-through business solutions.

We conceive and apply digital for banks in the context of customers, their journeys, and the various experience points across these journeys. Our end-to-end digital expertise threads every user journey seamlessly from Core to Connectors to Customer Experiences. Our risk and impact frameworks comprehensively map changes in user journeys, and possible risks to the system, ensuring superior digital solution design. Further, our two-decades-long understanding of the banking domain helps us create and harden contextual solutions, leveraging the best in the ecosystem.

What are your goals for the future? Are there any exciting acquisitions on the horizon?

We achieved a revenue of INR 334 crores and we are on track to achieve a growth of nearly 16% this financial year. All of our efforts are on track to double the revenue in the next three years.

We have four business units - namely DataTech, Digital Transformation, Quality Engineering and Core Banking. While we had been offering these services early on since FY 19-20, these have been functioning as individual business units in a federated model. Our suite of offerings across digital, data, and core banking contributed to 28% of overall revenue last year and have a clear growth trajectory to contribute to nearly 46% of the total revenue this year.

We have invested in creating competency centres and labs across our business units. Our digital experience lab drives cloud enablement, rapid prototyping as well as simulation of customer sandbox environments, while the data technologies lab accelerates the creation of assets across big data and analytics areas. Further, accelerators and frameworks created through the QE competency centre drive tech-led QE services for 95% QE automation.

We are always on the lookout for a right kind of partner to augment our capabilities, however, we have nothing on the books right now.

What excites you about the future of banking technology solutions?

On one hand, the pandemic has opened up a new level of digital possibilities and on the other, it has accelerated the pace of adoption of these technologies. On an immediate basis, I see increased adoption of technologies driving customer experience, regulatory as well as cost efficiencies. Cloud-based technological solutions will gain traction, provided there is enough security protocol put in place and that the organisations ensure that their customer’s data is safe and safely processed across the value chain.

API based banking will see a significant rise in the future, driven by regulations like PSD2 and financial marketplace, driving the need to integrate with the larger financial technology ecosystem. There will be a lot more synergies between various players in the industry and the end consumer is to win in a big way.

The AI adoption that is already underway will witness further growth. The usual suspects of adoption have been in customer experience, virtual assistants or conversational areas, RPA, fraud detection and back-office areas. These have been more at an experimentation level and will see scaling for mainstream adoption.

From the moment they entered the market, challenger banks have been at the forefront of technology and innovation, rapidly scaling products to meet customers’ banking needs – winning them over by demystifying the complexities surrounding financial products and talking to them on their terms.

Traditional banks, in response to these new entrants to the market, have embarked on their own digital transformation projects, designed to further improve the efficiency and quality of their services and put power in the hands of the consumer.

Giving customers a new way to bank

By tackling some of the most irritating money management gripes, leading challenger bank Monzo established itself as a go-to bank for young professional. Its slick app interface and nifty features appeal to Millennial lifestyles in particular, and it wasn’t long before similar innovations followed from the likes of N26, Revolut and Starling Bank.

Elsewhere, brands like Nutmeg, Atom Bank and Wealthsimple have made names for themselves by supporting those looking to invest, while Tide and Anna are helping entrepreneurs manage their company banking with similar ease to the consumer challenger brands.

 How are traditional banks reacting?

The rise of new banks like Monzo has, unsurprisingly, forced traditional retail banks to consider how they present and deliver their services.

There is no doubt that challengers are providing consumers with an abundance of choice, which can only be a good thing, as it is putting pressure on the bigger banks to ensure customer experiences are at the centre of their digital transformation projects. Indeed, in a recent Experian report[1], we found that of all businesses undertaking a digital transformation project in the UK, almost 80% wanted to improve the user and customer experience.

The most successful FinTech features have been implemented relatively quickly, such as freezing a debit card via an app and instant balance updates when using contactless.

However, one of the biggest challenges traditional banks face, and one that is shared with many other companies undertaking digital transformation, are the legacy systems currently in place. We found that 36% of businesses ranked this as the biggest obstacle to change, and with millions of customers accessing banking services on a daily basis, ensuring that there is no disruption is a vital consideration when updating systems and adding new features.

Data-driven

Whatever its size or maturity, every bank depends on the quality of its data-sets. It doesn’t matter how innovative the tools are, if the data that powers them is incomplete, out-of-date or non-compliant, they are almost certainly doomed to fail. According to our study, as many as 70% of businesses see poor quality data as a barrier to digital transformation.

Addressing data accuracy issues is even more important in a world where AI is leveraged to speed up mortgage and loan approvals, while robo-advisors influence consumer decision-making.

The ease and speed at which these applications can deliver traditionally time-consuming services is remarkable – but it is the responsibility of all banks to put safeguards in place to ensure the right outcome. Of course, in a sector where data protection and security are paramount, this also means compliance with GDPR and FCA standards.

Unlike established banks, which have amassed vast quantities of data over the years, the new players will be more reliant on external sources of data to inform decision-making. It is therefore incumbent on them to use trusted suppliers, who obtain, store and cleanse data in line with the relevant legislation.

Accessing high-quality data will enable these new brands to play established brands at their own game, enabling them to grow their market share over the coming years.

Future forecasting

 Even before challenger banks rose to their current levels of popularity, the number of banks on UK high streets were declining. Now, they are disappearing from UK high streets at a rate of up to 60 branches a month.[2]

That is not to say that online banking has rendered physical banks redundant, since many customers still like the reassurance of face-to-face contact, particularly for more complex services – an area completely dominated by the larger traditional banks.

It is here where the challenger banks will need to come up with innovative solutions to target these customers. While they are unlikely to open multiple branches, they may choose to operate specialist-led boutique banks in key locations. However, it could be that the digitally-savvy Gen-Z is the first customer group to feel comfortable choosing banks with no physical presence – as long as the services provided meet their needs and are underpinned by a commitment to data integrity.

 

For more analysis on these figures, download the most recent DataIQ and Experian research report – https://www.experian.co.uk/blogs/latest-thinking/data-and-innovation/digital-transformation-research-report

[1] https://www.experian.co.uk/blogs/latest-thinking/data-and-innovation/digital-transformation-research-report/

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44483304

Digital transformation: from buzzword to reality

Business’ biggest buzzword, digital transformation, has taken the technology world by storm. Despite being around since the 1990s, it has recently become a term that permeates almost every business strategy or vision for the future. Today, every technology provider claims it can enable digital transformation, and all well-informed CEOs are mandating it to drive their business forward.

The key to unlocking this business growth starts with technology’s second-biggest buzzword: data.

Barriers to a data-driven digital transformation

While data may be ‘the new oil’, an uncontrollable explosion of unrefined data doesn’t add any value to a business. You must be able to sort, process and examine data, view it from different angles and understand how to extract intelligent insights from it. To do this, having the right infrastructure in place is key. Indeed, large businesses in particular often struggle with legacy systems that aren’t designed to handle the volume of data we now produce and consume.

For finance departments, reliance on outdated technology is certainly part of the problem, but there are also other issues that need to be addressed. A recent BlackLine survey examining attitudes to financial data revealed that the C-suite’s top perceived challenge was that data was from too many sources and there was uncertainty over whether it was all being accounted for. Over a quarter of C-suite executives and finance professionals (28%) claimed that there were not enough automated controls and checks for the volume of data they had to deal with and that the process of collecting and processing the data was too complex (also 28%).

The key to unlocking this business growth starts with technology’s second-biggest buzzword: data.

So, what steps can finance professionals take to address these challenges? And what questions should finance departments ask as part of their quest to become truly data-driven?

Asses your data foundation

The vital first step for any transformation journey is to assess how far along the road you’ve already travelled. It might seem obvious that real-time access to accurate, reliable data – including financial data – can be used for strategic analysis and to create a competitive edge. But what may be less obvious is how damaging it can be to base this analysis on poor quality, unstructured or untrustworthy data.

According to BlackLine’s survey results, almost seven in 10 respondents believed that either they themselves or their CEO had made a significant business decision based on out-of-date or incorrect financial data. Not only can tapping into poor data compromise the decisions you make, but it can also seriously hamper your organisation’s ability to transform longer-term.

Is your data accurate?

With this in mind, the first question any organisation or department should consider is whether the data they do have is accurate. Is there real confidence in the precision of your data; can you be confident in the decisions you make from it? If there are inaccuracies, where are they coming from, and what processes or controls can you put in place to improve this?

The first question any organisation or department should consider is whether the data they do have is accurate.

In the finance department, clunky spreadsheets and outdated processes often leave finance teams in the dark until month-end, resulting in rushed work, manual workarounds and an increased risk of human error. By automating manual, predicable and repeatable processes, such as transaction matching or journal entries, data not only becomes more reliable but time is also freed up for more valuable work.

Is your data expansive and up-to-date?

Once you are comfortable that manual tasks have been automated, and are confident in the data being used to drive decisions, the next thing to consider is whether your data sets are expansive enough for intelligent analysis. Having a foundation of clean, relevant data is fantastic, but there must be enough of it to reliably answer pressing business questions.

At the same time, it’s vital to examine whether the data you do have access to is actually up-to-date. After all, why use data that is a month old to make decisions now? Continuous accounting, for example, which shifts the finance department from a monthly to a near real-time data cycle, makes it easier to deliver forward-looking, strategic insights that benefit the rest of the business.

Is today’s data ready for tomorrow’s demands?

Finally, finance departments need to ask whether the data foundations they are building today will be fit for purpose tomorrow. Much of this comes down to a question of trust: do you trust the processes you have in place to deliver data that is accurate, reliable, scalable and usable – not only now, but also in the long run?

Finance departments are bracing themselves for further technological disruption. A lack of trust in your data today not only has implications for human decision making, but it could also impact technology that learns from this data further down the line. While truly intelligent technology, like AI, may not be a reality for the finance department just yet, establishing its data integrity now will ensure it is ready for these advances when they do arise.

 

Amidst a large swathe of planned job cuts at Lloyds, at the beginning of November the bank announced that there was a silver lining - a £3 billion investment programme that will see the country’s biggest high-street lender radically transform its digital strategy. While 6,000 existing roles are being cut from a broad range of areas, 8,000 are being created to focus on areas of digital expansion, including in the group transformation unit. And, the CEO of Tectrade Alex Fagioli points out, it’s about time for Lloyds, as it begins to play catch up with an industry that has quietly been revolutionised by high-street banks and start-ups that have gone all-in on digital banking.

Digital banking provides a great deal of benefits to administrators and alike. Customers are given a more flexible way of banking, accessing their accounts and transferring their money without relying on bank hours. Managers have an unprecedented insight into the activity of branches and can offer services to their customers which they had previously been incapable of. However, the challenges and risks that come with digital transformation have led traditionally large financial institutions like Lloyds to poorly implementing such practices to the detriment of all involved.

In April, a routine systems upgrade at TSB went awry and left 1.9 million customers locked out of their accounts for up to a month. Similarly on Friday 1 June, 5.2 million transactions using Visa failed across Europe as a result of one single faulty switch in one of Visa’s data centres. This isn’t just a continental issue; Atlanta-based Sun Trust – a bank with 1,400 bank branches and 2,160 – experienced a significant outage to its online and mobile banking platforms in September due to a botched upgrade. In all of these cases, the outages weren’t the result of cyberattack or weather-related problems. Instead, these outages came as a result of seemingly insignificant technical factors that had been overlooked – and Lloyds would be wise to heed these cautionary tales.

The challenges and risks that come with digital transformation have led traditionally large financial institutions like Lloyds to poorly implementing such practices to the detriment of all involved.

In the first two instances, cause of the outages are very clear– and they were entirely preventable. TSB rushed into an upgrade by hastily initiating the update across its entire system. For a technical reason that we will likely never know, the update tanked the entire bank and left it at a standstill while it tried to pick up the pieces. Even when it managed to get everything back in place, TSB is now permanently scarred by the event, with its reputation still reeling. The prevention for this would have been a gradual rollout, as opposed to a sweeping installation. If the upgrade was initially piloted with non-essential systems, then the bugs would likely have been spotted early, with little fuss and no media spotlight.

Likewise, the Visa incident came as a result of a single faulty switch and that betrays a lack of understanding of its own systems. It is shocking how few companies have carried out any form of disaster recovery testing on their infrastructure. Administrators are incapable of having a full understanding of the systems they are responsible for without testing them in a controlled and simulated environment. With a controlled disaster test, that faulty switch would have been highlighted and those 5.2 million transactions would have been completed. It’s similar to a car – the reason that MOTs are essential is so that any issues can be highlighted well ahead of them having a serious effect on the vehicle’s performance. Banks must carry out a cyber MOT in order to keep their systems in check and to give IT teams a full working knowledge of any potential issues.

But this is all in the case of preventable issues, and in the modern day accepted wisdom is not if, it’s when outages will happen.

Thus far we’ve only addressed routine operations, but cyberattack is of course an omnipresent threat. Ransomware has spent the past couple of years as the ‘big bad’ in cybercrime, and it is an even bigger threat to the financial sector. Over the past 12 months, the financial services and insurance sector was attacked by ransomware more than any other industry, with the number of cyberattacks against financial services companies in particular, rising by more than 80%.  If a bank were to be hit by a ransomware attack, all online systems for banking and insurance transactions will need to be taken offline, rendering that organisation unable to operate. According to a report from Osterman Research, there is a 50% chance of employees in this industry suffering productivity loss, a 30% chance that the financial and insurance services will shut down temporarily, and a 20% chance of revenue loss and adverse effect on customer perception. In cases of ransomware, data recovery can be very difficult as there is a large amount of customer information stored in a variety of disparate systems. As such, many organisations may feel they have no choice but to pay the fee demanded of them to regain access to the data.

Over the past 12 months, the financial services and insurance sector was attacked by ransomware more than any other industry, with the number of cyberattacks against financial services companies in particular, rising by more than 80%.

Equally as unpreventable are environmental factors. Areas like the Southern States of the USA are frequently dominated by hurricanes and tropical storms which can cause large disruptions to everything from schools to banks. Many of these buildings have to be built with this in mind, and network operations should be created with the same mindset. In the UK, by contrast, we don’t have to deal with such extreme weather conditions, but environmental considerations must be made with the potential for freak accidents. A burst pipe in a shared building or road workers drilling through electrical or network cabling, for example, could see a bank offline for an indeterminate period of time outside of its control. One example of this in action was with National Australia Bank, which suffered a power outage that downed ATMs, Eftpos and online banking across the country for five hours in May.

In all of these situations where outages can occur, banks must make sure they have the capacity to get their systems back online and fast. The best way to do this is by adopting a zero-day approach to architecture. Zero-day architecture won’t prevent an outage, but it will mitigate the effects. It allows organisations to minimise downtime and recover from backups without having to worry about lost data.

A zero-day recovery architecture is a service that enables administrators to quickly bring work code or data into operation in the event of any outages, without having to worry about whether the workload is still compromised. An evolution of the 3-2-1 backup rule (three copies of your data stored on two different media and one backup kept offsite), zero-day recovery enables an IT department to partner with the cyber team and create a set of policies which define the architecture for what they want to do with data backups being stored offsite, normally in the cloud. This policy assigns an appropriate storage cost and therefore recovery time to each workload according to its strategic value to the business. It could, for example, mean that a particular workload needs to be brought back into the system within 20 minutes while another workload can wait a couple of days.

Without learning the lessons of the high-profile outages that have come before it from banks that have undergone their own transformations, Lloyds is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

As it begins its massive investment in digital transformation, Lloyds could very easily sink its budget into exciting features that promise to improve the lives of customers and employees. However, without learning the lessons of the high-profile outages that have come before it from banks that have undergone their own transformations, Lloyds is doomed to repeat the same mistakes. You can promise all the features in the world, but without a solid foundation the bank will essentially be a house of cards, ready to collapse at the slightest sign of danger. All banks, regardless of size, must prioritise the minimisation of downtime by having common sense policies in patch management, full knowledge of a system gained through disaster testing and a recovery strategy in place that enables it to get back online at speed.

 

https://www.tectrade.com

Finance Monthly recently spoke with Rajeev Tandon, CEO of Xavient Digital - powered by TELUS International, about how future competitiveness will be determined by those who make digital evolution a part of their core DNA to continuously adapt ahead of their competitors.

 

Today’s businesses are focused on digital transformation more than ever before, with many CEOs and CIOs listing it as a top priority in 2018 and beyond. Why is that the case?

Digital transformation or digital enablement - the changes associated with integrating digital technology to enable innovation in all aspects of a business - is increasingly top of mind for many companies because of its significant impact on a brand’s ability to deliver superior customer experiences compared to their competitors. The trend towards digital is also being exacerbated by disruptive companies that continue to shake up traditional business models and steadily gain market share.

In the digital age, consumers want next-gen technology-enabled user experiences today - not tomorrow - from the brands they support. These predictive and hyper-personalised interactions, which must also be available when, where and how they want, are quickly becoming the norm as opposed to a ‘value added’ feature. In addition to making every customer touchpoint and interaction more meaningful, evolving digitally also helps on the back end, improving processes and driving operational agility - critical factors in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Importantly, companies must recognise that digital transformation has no clear finish line, but must be repeatedly executed in order to keep pace with new technologies entering the market.

 

What are the top factors driving digital enablement?

Customer experience is arguably the topmost factor driving digital enablement as a captivating customer journey goes a long way in establishing unflinching customer loyalty. In fact, customer experience is becoming increasingly recognised as a fundamental competitive differentiator - even more so than the product in many instances.

Rising competition in this regard has brought dynamic technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain among others to the forefront. When harnessed as part of an overall digital enablement strategy, these technologies can help brands develop a deeper understanding of their customers’ expectations in order to better align their products and services to meet, and oftentimes, anticipate their needs.

Additionally, as tech-savvy Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as the largest segment of the population, brands need to up their ‘digital game’ in order to create engaging user experiences. Whether companies  seek  to  accomplish   this internally, or look to develop a trusted outsourcing partnership externally, this is how brands will thrive today and into the future in the new age of the digitised customer experience. Moreover, brands need to focus on delivering personalised services and shorter time-to-market, as both significantly contribute towards delightful customer experiences.

 

Are there specific industries that should be focused on digital enablement?

Regardless of product or service type, the size of your business or your industry, leveraging some aspect of a digital evolution will enhance your performance. This is because the true power of digital doesn’t live in the technologies themselves, but in how they are selected, customised and integrated with one another and into all aspects of a company, including customer service. Where there are customers, there will be patterns in their behaviours, expectations and attitudes, and digital enablement is about arranging all customer touchpoints into a connected network that is proactive, agile, intelligent and analytical.

Financial services and FinTech are industries where digital enablement has flourished in order to meet the needs of consumers who are continually seeking more efficient, accessible and personalised experiences from their providers. Traditional banks, for instance, can no longer get by with simply a website and an app, they need to be able to offer far more features than the ability to check an account balance to keep up with the new products and services being offered by non-financial brands such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

But, when FinTech providers focus entirely on launching new products or rolling out more flexible options, customer service  can  get  left behind. By partnering with a customer experience provider to help sustain the brand experience, FinTechs can balance innovation with exceptional customer service.

All in all, digitally-enabled businesses reduce customer effort, which leads to satisfied customers, increased brand affinity and top-line growth.


What are some of the challenges that businesses face when undertaking a digital enablement strategy?

While some worry about being able to keep pace with the latest technologies, others fear falling in the gulf between the initiation and finalisation of large-scale initiatives, or are hesitant to invest in new technology before they realise a financial return on a legacy system.

These are valid concerns and challenges, however, they should not stop companies from pursuing a digital enablement strategy. Instead, they should inform how you design and execute it, as there are various ways to incorporate many different aspects of digital capabilities into your business.

Digital enablement does not mean that a business needs to transform its operations overnight, nor does it preclude a major initial investment. It is a process and companies can begin by taking small steps, such as integrating a chatbot or an AI-powered analytics platform into their existing operations.

It’s also important to understand that technology adoption alone does not equal digital enablement. The overall corporate evolution, with an emphasis on strategy, operations and culture is the star - technology is the supporting cast. In this regard, another challenge organisations can face is internal resistance to change by employees.

Not everyone welcomes a new way of doing things, and if widespread, this lack of curiosity and experimentation often deprives businesses from discovering new and better ways to operate, work more efficiently and deliver enhanced customer experiences. A risk-averse mindset can be similarly detrimental, so it’s critical to foster a culture that embraces change, has a growth mindset, and is agile. Training and education also go a long way in executing a solid digital strategy.

 

What are some of the ways brands are leveraging next-gen technology to change the way they do business?

Innovation in technology has empowered companies from start-ups to mature brands, to create disruptions in their industry in order  to gain a competitive  edge  by  reimagining  the possibilities for their customers. Next-gen technologies are helping them better understand the needs of their customers today and can more accurately predict what they will want in the future in order to guide the necessary improvements to their tools and technology architecture.

AI-powered analytics platforms that aggregate agent-customer interactions from various channels into intelligent patterns are in high demand in an age where customer expectations are at an all-time high. Brands are profiting from these platforms’ abilities to use voice recognition, natural language processing and even sarcasm detection to decipher customer intent with reliable probability to detect critical issues that need immediate resolution and to drive recommended actions.

At the end of the day, successfully implementing a digital enablement strategy also requires having highly-skilled and knowledgeable customer service agents who can fully leverage these new technologies across different platforms and customer contact points. In the months and years ahead, these types of universal agents will continue to be key to providing high-tech, high- touch brand experiences.

 

About Xavient Digital

Acquired by TELUS International in February 2018, Xavient Digital - powered by TELUS International, provides advanced, next-gen IT consulting and delivery services, including Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered Digital Transformation services, User Interface/User Experience (UI/UX) design, Open Source Platform services, Cloud services, Over-The-Top (OTT) solutions, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data services, DevOps, and IT Lifecycle services.

 

With a focus on supporting fast-growing tech, travel and hospitality, telecommunications and healthcare clients, the combined company of more than 30,000 inspired team members is a leader in the customer experience and digital services markets.

 

Website: https://www.xavient.com/

https://www.telusinternational.com/

By Andrew Durlak, Co-Founder & VP of Operations at Scout RFP

The use of digital technologies in non-customer-facing operating activities lags behind technology utilization for other critical business activities, according to a recent HBR report in partnership with Scout RFP. (And yes, that lag includes various aspects of finance — scary, right?) This is a problem, particularly when digital technologies are a top driver in critical strategic prioritization, as another recent report by Ernst & Young points out. If businesses aren’t fully up to speed in the digital transformation, how can finance leaders truly engage in strategic leadership – such as streamlining revenue and increasing ROI from tech investments – within the organization?

Finance leaders can blaze the trail in this area, accelerating digital transformation and positioning themselves as proactive leaders within their respective companies in the process. The first step is to broaden finance’s view of digital transformation outside of traditional FinTech. One area that poses the promise of high ROI is procurement — an area of the business that often falls under finance’s oversight, yet is rarely tapped to its true potential for bottom line savings.

 

Undiscovered potential

 While sourcing is a business function that is often overlooked in digital transformation efforts, it can also have a massive bottom-line impact on the organization: As the HBR report points out, strategic sourcing has the potential to drive up to 400 percent ROI and “any cost savings realized through sourcing improvement drop directly to the bottom line, which in turn can have a substantial impact on profitability.”

The report also goes on to highlight more untapped benefits to strategic sourcing: “Although some dimensions are more straightforward to quantify than others, the concrete financial returns of focused sourcing and procurement efforts are quick to accrue and very easy to identify, executives say. The work is tangible and measurable, with a rapid and unambiguous impact on shareholder value. Once the company undertakes improvement, executives point out, the financial benefits begin to accumulate rapidly.”

 

Taking the first step 

With savings that go directly – and quickly – to a business’s bottom line, there’s no reason that finance leaders shouldn’t prioritize procurement in their quest for digital transformation within the company. As they think outside of increased sales to improve cash flow, the impactful, direct savings that strategic sourcing delivers is an obvious answer. Strategic sourcing brings a notable advantage to traditional cash flow tactics through efficient and effective processes.
In order to take the first step in sparking digital movement to establish these strategic processes, there are three key ways finance leaders must approach the transformation within their business:

  1. Encourage stakeholder buy-in.
    Stakeholders must engage to truly make the adoption of new technology successful. Before implementing a new solution, finance leaders can encourage this buy-in by clearly defining the stakeholders’ needs met by the solution — whether that be a more collaborative team environment or accelerated savings. When compared to the current results stakeholders are seeing from existing technology or processes, a new solution worth implementing should have the power to speak for itself.
  2. Select the right technology.
    Technology that prioritizes automation and collaboration yields efficiency. Adopting technology that allows cross-functional teams to collaborate, streamlines communication and project management in a single platform, and encourages more strategic vendor decisions means quicker savings that can then fuel even further technology adoption within the business. Digital transformation is a cycle — as finance leaders pursue forward-looking digital adoption, they open a new channel for accelerated digital transformation within the business as a whole.
  3. Make implementation easy.
    While finance leads the business in a digital movement, quick and easy onboarding and streamlined implementation are key to continuing that momentum for further digital adoption. To keep stakeholders engaged even after the initial touchpoint, finance leaders must create an adoption process that is as easy and streamlined as possible. This will encourage users to dig into the solution early on, promoting familiarity and ongoing use of the technology. When users are fully engrained in a solution from the start, it makes it nearly impossible for use of the technology to fizzle out, establishing long-term impact.Traditionally, accounting and ERP software have been considered the fulcrums of change for digital transformation within the enterprise. While these certainly have their merits, don’t forget the path less (digitally) traveled. Finance’s responsibilities have shifted, and its leaders must adjust priorities accordingly. “Where once its remit was predominantly that of a reporting function that focused on balancing the books, it will become a data-driven decision-center,” Ernst & Young’s The DNA of the CFO report points out. Tapping undiscovered resources –like procurement– to jumpstart digital transformation, and taking deliberate steps to make sure that digital adoption reaches the business as a whole, puts the necessary parts in place for finance to adjust its focus to more strategic, data-driven decisions for the business as a whole.

 

Website: https://www.scoutrfp.com/

About Finance Monthly

Universal Media logo
Finance Monthly is a comprehensive website tailored for individuals seeking insights into the world of consumer finance and money management. It offers news, commentary, and in-depth analysis on topics crucial to personal financial management and decision-making. Whether you're interested in budgeting, investing, or understanding market trends, Finance Monthly provides valuable information to help you navigate the financial aspects of everyday life.
© 2024 Finance Monthly - All Rights Reserved.
News Illustration

Get our free monthly FM email

Subscribe to Finance Monthly and Get the Latest Finance News, Opinion and Insight Direct to you every month.
chevron-right-circle linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram