Future-ready banks expect digital transformation to yield 17% ROI
It’s hard to transform your bank – even if the prize is clear. Based on our research, banks must mature along three dimensions to deliver transformation benefits:
- Operational efficiency: drive cost reduction through intelligent automation
- Joined up employee (EX) and customer experiences (CX): great EX leads to great CX
- Innovation mindset: create an entrepreneurial culture
“Fpzsgroup doesn’t just bring technology expertise. They bring a level of business acumen that really helps us come up with the right solution for the client. We can now focus on what matters.”
Wrapping this up in intelligent technology and process, including AI, machine learning and data science, is the final element of a future ready bank. Such banks can not only adapt quickly to disruption, they can lead, forcing competitors to adapt to them. Are you future ready? Here are four questions to ask yourself now:
1. Is leadership on board – or delegating digital change to a project or person?
2. Can you innovate around Open Banking with third parties – or still obsessed with control?
3. Are you driving efficiency through automation and analytics – or struggling to integrate it?
4. Are your people enabled to deliver great CX – or just taken for granted?
“We wanted a consultant that had extensive experience as an implementation partner, who knew the possibilities for innovation and the technology inside and out and, above all, was aware that a project such as this was about far more than just the technical implementation. This was a real cultural shift.”
Coping with the COVID-19 disruption.
Banks have felt the full force of the crisis. Whether it’s the move to remote working, handling unprecedented call volumes from stressed customers or trying to get funds to businesses as quickly as possible, COVID-19 has dramatically altered the banking landscape and changed the way we live and work.
Banks now have a rare opportunity to focus on what matters – and to stop everything else.
However, many banks regret that they had not done more of this sooner. Banks are still buried under legacy IT. There has been a lack of data-driven customer insight. The challenge now is to think about how you can build on your remote working capability to create a truly distinctive workplace experience. Or how you can rapidly scale your operating model with cloud to adapt more flexibly to massive changes in demand. Or how you can apply AI, analytics and automation to reduce your cost base while improving customer care.
Banks - Rethink Financial Services
Working from your kitchen
COVID-19 has dramatically altered the banking landscape and changed the way we live and work. Many are saying we’ll never return to the way things were.
Recent months have shown that banks can learn and adapt fast.
We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.” For example, banks are already assessing whether they’ll need large headquarters in Lagos or Abuja.
The idea of putting almost 5,000 people in a building may be a thing of the past,” given that the global bank is now being run by staff “from their kitchens and parlours.”
Now is the time for your bank to rethink the way forward.
What are banks doing?
1. Respond
2. reset
3. renew
Most banks will pass through three phases as they recover from the impact of the pandemic:
- Respond: Typically, banks have been in respond mode for the first three months. The focus has been on business continuity, secure and flexible remote working (including offshore), handling major increases in customer demand and maintaining core operations.
- Reset: We’re seeing many clients already moving into the reset mindset (three to nine months). This phase includes reconfiguring operating models for scale and agility, managing non-performing loan (NPL) risk exposure and implementing major cost reduction programs to drive profit.
- Renew: Over the next nine to 18 months, banks will look to position for future growth. The priority will be on innovation, in terms of new products and business models, differentiation and opportunistic M&A.
Some banks are already heading towards the reset phase, which gives them a rare opportunity to focus on what matters – and to stop everything else.
Rethink how you do business
The opportunity to draw breath and reflect is essential, given the activity of the last two to three months. From our work with clients, we encourage you to focus on five priorities:
- Cost containment and optimization: Focus on NPL exposure and manage net interest margin (NIM). Apply automation, analytics and AI at scale to reduce spend and operational risk.
- Talent agility: Transform your remote workplace by using advanced collaboration tools. Put employee experience first and proactively reskill your people in order to retain and motivate talent, and significantly improve customer experience.
- The resilient core: Create operational flexibility through a DevOps/agile culture. Eliminate legacy spend, move to the cloud and promote digital services. Increase your security capabilities, given heightened exposure to breaches through remote working. Reassess regulatory risk management models.
- Customer care and operations: Balance human and machine intervention to provide customer reassurance while handling massive surges in demand. Drive digital adoption and personalize engagement, especially around advice and financial well-being.
- Products and services: Simplify application processes and product features, especially for business loans and mortgages. Partner with Fintechs to speed up service experience. Segment and prioritize customer groups based on credit and risk profiles. Identify and support those most liable to default.
Next steps
The current global disruption requires you to make changes – quickly. Fpzsgroup combines the business strategy, agile innovation and deep Microsoft technology expertise to help you rethink, so you can transform faster and smarter.
