How to make vision a reality - it's not that difficult

26 February 2014

My previous blog touched on the importance of communication. Firstly, the need for those in the world of information technology to be able to articulate the near limitless capabilities of current software and secondly the need for business leaders to be willing to listen and be open to the power and promise offered by new technology to upgrade and expand their service.

So, why are the conversations not happening? It should be easy to excite business to the possibilities they are missing with the new generation of technology platforms? From my observation, there seem to be two main barriers to an initial exchange:

• New technology is viewed as costly. Business Leaders simply believe it would be too difficult and expensive to change their current systems, so do not feel it is worth their time exploring new possibilities. Most financial service providers have a technical infrastructure that mirrors their compartmentalised organisation. Over years this has led to a profusion of diverse platforms and add-on components, resulting in a diverse environment that is costly to maintain, but viewed as too complex to change.
• Change is seen as risky. Overcoming the undoubted challenges of legacy requires a fresh approach to technology. Tough challenges invite bold solutions, but ‘bold’ is not a traditionally accepted approach in the conservative financial service industry.

To really excite the new generation of consumers, we need to overcome these barriers. There are solutions that will deliver the vision of offering improved speed, service and transparency to customers alongside enhanced information, analytics and risk reduction for the business. A fresh approach will not only deliver efficiency for business, but a significantly enhanced experience for the customer.

Technology can open the door to benefits long viewed as the goals of the future. That is, unleashing the full value of data. Such visions are not new, but admittedly many business leaders have experienced project costs far exceeding budgets and which still fail to deliver. Unhappy experience will doubtless introduce a certain cynicism to their thinking.

So how to overcome the barriers of assumed complexity and risk? The answer lays with small steps, gradually migrating business units onto a single multi-use platform, allowing users to experience a seamless flow of information though one wide-spectrum application. A standardised framework offers optimum flexibility and efficiency, replacing a nearly endless stream of one-off fixes for diverse platforms. There needs to be a fundamental shift away from the traditional view that IT infrastructure is purely a driver for rising costs, but a way of delivering multiple business benefits, for example:

• Automated low-cost platform that allows for easy replication
• Dramatic cost reduction
• Customer centric strategy possible with uniform system
• Increased performance and data analytics

And with a single platform comes the ability to ‘reuse’. Firms that can reuse their technology across all their business process, applications and data will be in a much better position to meet customer expectations and drive higher growth and margins. It really is not that difficult.