Staying Ahead of the Competition

Photo by Brent Olson on Unsplash

Transformation is Never Fast Enough

We don’t subscribe to the notion that “agile” is just a management fad, or that it is a buzzword for previously established best practices for software development. Its founding manifesto is now more than two decades old and, like the code it inspired, it needs to adapt and continuously improve. 

Agile certainly has demonstrated its ability to produce new products at speed, and it is speed that is critical to digital transformation initiatives. Even so, whether you subscribe to the agile standard or you have had greater success with another methodology, nothing you do will get you the results as quickly as you would have hoped. In the interest of setting realistic expectations, we would be remiss not to mention this.

Similarly, we should restate what we said earlier about digital transformation being a journey, not a destination. While it is important to establish a clear, concise scope at the outset of the initiative, it must be understood that the job will never, ever be completely done.

The Customer is Sovereign

If you have chosen to align your bank with the goals inherent in a digital transformation, then you are pursuing some rather elusive customers. Let’s not dwell on generations or even ages, considering the oldest Millennials are turning 40. Let’s focus instead on what they care about, and what they don’t.

Customers today are more open to looking beyond the size of your institution, or its age, or its pedigree. They care less than before about assets under management or how many branches it has -- although they might be mildly interested in where the nearest ATM is.

And that’s only because they have become accustomed to zero in on one thing: their own, personal experience. The bank that delivers the newest innovations quickest is the one most likely to win the competition for their deposits and their loans.

So, in our next e-book, we’ll turn our attention to building new banking products at speed. While this starts with the core transformation that we discussed above, it also involves using data to drive trust as well as insight. We’ll also discuss how to partner with external stakeholders to build an open banking ecosystem; this includes, but is not limited to, an inevitable move to the cloud for processes you always thought would stay on your own raised floor.

To know more about procedures for setting the foundation for a new digital target state, please download our e-book as a first step.

Photo by Brent Olson.