The recipe for financial services success is consistent end-to-end digitization. Banks and insurers have enormous potential in this area, given the standard data they collect, process, and connect. Yet, end-to-end digitization has eluded many. The fallout from the 2008 economic crisis brought with it strict regulations which, coupled with low-interest rate policies, put pressure on earnings. And ironically, many early technological developments place a burden on the industry today. In addition, many decision-makers' understanding of business emerged with the models of decades past, leaving them ill-equipped to make the rapid changes market survival demands.
New online competitors face no such hindrances. Operating in a digital ecosystem with comparatively little regulation, they have already cornered a significant share of their market, redefining inherited value chains. Replacing product focus with a strong customer orientation, they effectively position themselves as intermediaries between product providers and clients. They are open to cooperation with other market players and adopt context-sensitive positions within the customers’ online journey. The new players' digital—and mostly platform-based business models—create overviews of the market, providing the ease of use, comparisons, transparency, opportunities for interaction, digital integration, and added value clients expect today.
Clients have long been internet-savvy, making small steps and half-measures towards digitization inadequate. Compromised, insular solutions that optimize the front end, but neglect the vast potential in consistently digitizing every process, are inefficient. They lack customer orientation and are often vulnerable to losing clients by demanding they jump through the traditional hoops of paper-based applications.
In this publication, we introduce topics such as identifying digitization potential, defining ambitious target scenarios, involving relevant units, developing sustainable digitization strategies, breaking projects down into manageable work packages, and modularizing product offerings. It offers an overview to rethinking and actioning end-to-end digitization, allowing your business to offer the efficient and customer-focused 24/7 service capability that clients demand. Financial service providers that embrace this focus will avoid both insular solutions and short-lived experiments, and improve their competitive position against innovative challengers.
Banks and insurers have some of the greatest digitization potential of all, given that they have been collecting, processing and connecting data on clients and transactions since the year dot.
