In the past decade, digital transformation has changed the way businesses work – instead of organizations relying on intuition to making key decisions, they have started leveraging data. Technology has significantly helped reinvent these old processes and bring massive shift within the business world. Moreover, COVID-19 and the shift to remote and hybrid work has made the adoption of technology a necessity for businesses in any industry.

Most leading financial institutions have realized the importance of digital transformation after the global pandemic in 2020. According to a report by UnivDatos  Market Insights, the market for digital transformation is expected to reach $ 3,693.8 Billion (USD) by 2026. This is just the beginning of the big rise of digital transformation in the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance sector.

With Fintech becoming more prominent in the Financial Industry, traditional banks cannot keep up with the progress and innovation being made by modern financial enterprises. Banks have historically remained risk-averse and staying away from adopting new technology has made them fall short on meeting customer demands. Traditional banks now need to upgrade their technological foundation to reap numerous benefits.

The Benefits of Digital Transformation

  • Financial services improve their customer experience in numerous ways – starting from attracting new customers to retaining existing ones by making banking a simplified process.
  • Customer centricity has become a central concept with the new era of banking, and digital transformation enables banks to achieve this through delivering services that maximize customer satisfaction. As per BDO International , 80% of financial companies state that one of their main reasons for improving customer experience, is to introduce new products and services to the customers over time, which entails higher revenues long-term.
  • Security is improved on all levels of data handling and encryption. Digital transformation can ensure safety of transactions, and you can expect to save yourself from internal leaks of information and prevent against frauds.

Now is the right time to integrate a winning Fintech solution into your current business processes before your clients switch to other businesses for better service.

How do you begin your Digital Transformation?

The onset digital transformation can take place in various methods with different outcomes, but the important aspect is to create a problem statement before beginning the process for your organization.

“Digital is a loaded word that means many things to many people, so when you discuss digital transformation unpack what it means for your organization” says Jim Swanson, CIO of Johnson & Johnson.

While some businesses have digital transformation engrained in their roots, lots of organizations would need significant planning and forecasting for making this change feasible to implement. A good way to do this is by connecting the dots between your strategy and digital initiative.

You would need to clearly state ‘why’ your organization needs digital transformation. For example, it might be for better customer experience, reducing friction between departments, increasing efficiency, or elevating profitability.

How can you Achieve Digital Transformation?

 After establishing your problem statement and objective, your next step should be to map out the process of achieving this desired state by laying out a set of actions that are easy for your business to take and can get you the results you expect. Here are some of the top priorities to work on for achieving a successful digital transformation at your company:

  1. Study Competitor and Your Product Offering: It is a good exercise to look into your competitor’s digital assets and product offerings to analyze the position you want to get to. The importance of this step is to create a report card of your organization and its ranking, compared to other traditional and non-traditional competitors, in terms of digital transformation levels and services.
  2. Evaluate Culture and Willingness to Adapt: We all know change is difficult, and organizations find that employees struggle to adapt to new technology. Start from the top of the chain and see the willingness of your Board of Directors in the shift to making processes digital. Then, evaluate whether the company’s culture can adapt and communicate the structural changes needed, so everyone in the organization is on board and prepared to adjust.You want to establish an environment that is inclusive of change, aligned to the objectives, and accountable for the actions taking place.
  3. Analyze Talent and Inventory Systems: Digital transformation cannot take place with employees that are not digitally literate. Look for employees that are qualified in this area that can lead and execute the project. If you do not have qualified individuals, look into recruiting new people or upskill the current employees through training programs.Lastly, evaluate all your inventory and categorize the current capabilities of your organization along with a roadmap for hitting the objectives for a smooth digital transformation.
  4. Plan your Communication and Marketing Plans: Strategize and organize your communications plan according to your consumers. Devise tactics around the best ways to build momentum and enthusiasm amongst your internal team, and your customers for your upcoming digital transformation. The goal is to let your employees know of the communication plan so they are clear on their tasks, and implement a marketing plan that outlines what your consumers can expect when interacting with your financial institution.

If you are not clear on the path to choose, you can get help from CPQi consultants to make the process easier for you.  We help in making your digital transformation easier and maximize the value of your investments.

Adopting Digital Transformation: The Way Forward

The digital transformation of your organization will change everything from the larger strategies to the smaller details, especially the way internal processes work. It leads to the need for integration within departments and deepens the requirement for collaborating within your organization.

While adopting digital transformation, you could consider a deep collaboration tool like TRIYO, that can enhance your current workflows. TRIYO is a deep collaboration software that transforms the way businesses collaborate, unifying distributed and multi-functional teams. Leveraging the API economy, it allows users to continue working on their existing tools that they are accustomed to, such as MS Office, G-Suite, JIRA, Salesforce, and more.  Since users do not have to learn a new tool, TRIYO has high adoption rates and requires minimal behavioral change. It also significantly reduces the need to carry out time consuming, manual tasks such as version control, tracking emails, unnecessary meetings and follow up calls by capturing this information in the background as users work on their tasks.  This allows teams to solely focus on their high-value tasks, which can increase their productivity by up to 25%.

It is clearer than ever that implementing digital transformation at your organization can improve your internal efficiency and satisfaction for your customers, and your employees. With more data points captured to understand your customers, digital transformation brings you to the cusp of modern solutions that is driving change in the financial services.

Remember, digital is not the future, it’s the present – the longer you take to make this transformation, he harder it will be to match your competition – regardless of the market your organization is in.