The pressure on financial services organisations to transform their digital capabilities won’t slow down anytime soon. In fact, it’s only going to ramp up over the coming years and decades. Especially with more customers expecting accessible online financial services.
With 40% of financial services executives surveyed by BDO saying they expect the digitisation of customer experience to significantly impact their business this year, reaction speed and agility will truly determine who the winners are.
Financial services businesses must remain adaptive and flexible to keep up with changing demands and a new digital transformation era. More than just technology investments, it’s time to implement radical changes in business processes, back-office infrastructure, and the use of data and analytics to stay competitive.
What do you need to consider to accelerate your digital transformation? What does a financial digital transformation roadmap look like?
We’ve put together a financial services digital transformation roadmap to help CxO’s and senior managers carve out their path to a new digital era, using technology to drive more success, growth, and efficiency in their business.
First, we’ll begin with a digital transformation roadmap outline to establish key considerations for your strategic planning. Then, we’ll look at some of the most popular digital initiatives that financial services are implementing this year.
The Digital Transformation Roadmap
How does one even begin to plan a strategy for something as complex and monumental as digital transformation? Breaking down your roadmap into these six steps is a fantastic start.
1. Establish ownership of the project
Digital transformation can quickly go awry when the wrong people are responsible for the wrong tasks. The first step is assigning ownership of the project to key figures in your organisation who will drive the project forward and ensure its success.
2. Define your transformation goals
Gain a clear understanding of what goals you want to achieve for your digital transformation. Then, evaluate your current digital infrastructure and the organisation’s preparedness for change. Gartner also recommends developing a communications initiative to pitch the strategy to key stakeholders and broader teams.
3. Design your digital strategy
Do some competitive research to see what technology other organisations use within the financial services sector and compare your current capabilities. Then, identify what new business models are needed to achieve your digital transformation goals.
Outline what partnerships with other businesses or software providers will help you build more efficient processes and make sure you’re aligning these with current customer demands and behaviours.
4. Create an implementation plan
Outline in detail what impact your digital transformation will have on your organisation, specific roles, and business processes. Plan what skills, employees, and tech stack you need to implement your new digital transformation initiatives successfully. Then, establish key performance indicators and create parameters for testing the effectiveness of your strategy.
5. Prepare to scale your initiatives
Identify how governance might change in your organisation to meet your digital transformation goals and create a detailed step-by-step plan to achieve each digital initiative, making sure everyone is on board with the approach. Assess your trials and proof of concepts to see what vital changes need to happen within your infrastructure to support your new initiatives.
6. Optimise based on results
Keep monitoring what customer behaviour changes and technology disruptions are happening in the market and how these may impact your goals. Once implemented, analyse the success of your digital transformation strategy and its impact on your revenue, productivity, customers, and employees. Be prepared to refresh your plans to move with the times and react to innovations.
The Most Popular Initiatives for Digital Transformation
Now, let’s look at some of the most popular digital initiatives other financial services companies are taking.
Invest in digital upskilling programmes
Ensuring your teams have the proper training and skills needed for your digital transformation will be critical to its success. According to one BDO survey, insufficient training or skills and lack of employee adoption are the top two reasons digital transformation strategies don’t perform as well as they should. These statistics explain why 50% of financial services companies plan to invest in training for digital initiatives over the next year.
Increase agility with organisational changes
According to a 2020 survey by Forbes, 35% of people think the CEO is responsible for organisational agility. And it’s true: C-suite executives are responsible for critical transformation decisions and approvals. So championing a culture of innovation, adaptivity, and flexibility is vital. When there’s a focus on agility, it encourages employees to develop new ideas and be proactive rather than reactive in their approach to new digital initiatives.
Make digital investments a priority
This initiative may seem obvious, but with 77% of financial services leaders planning to increase their digital investments this year, now is not the time to take a backseat with digital spending. Ensure you’re weighing up the cost of your digital investments with the return on investment, ease of user adoption, and skills needed to invest wisely.
Take advantage of cloud-based technology
72% of financial services companies have already invested in cloud-based collaboration platforms, according to BPO. It’s unsurprising, as Cloud technology represents the core of most digital transformation initiatives, allowing you to seamlessly synchronise real time data, quickly react to change, and keep your organisation safe from cyber security threats.
Partner with companies that fuel transformation
BPO states that of the 100 c-level executives surveyed, 49% are joining or expanding a digital partner ecosystem. Whether it’s an integration software company, automation tool, or cloud-based front-to-back office system, there are limitless possibilities for partnerships; so make sure you’re investing heavily in research to identify the right ones.
Software & quality testing is key to your success
While creating robust digital transformation roadmaps and strategies are essential, attempts at increasing efficiency are futile if you’re not testing the effectiveness of your systems, strategy, software, and digital infrastructure.
At Assured Thought, we provide quality assurance and software testing for financial institutions, from wealth and asset management, investment management to private banking, and everything in between.
We deliver a complete testing solution, mixing objectivity with experience to solve software delivery challenges by defining, preparing, facilitating, and delivering exceptional testing solutions that perfectly complement your goals.
With our expertise and support, you can go live with confidence, deliver change faster, and enhance both user and customer experience from all angles.
Get in touch with us today to craft a bespoke testing solution to accelerate and support your digital transformation.
