Customer-Centricity Leading to a New Era of Digital Transformation
Technology has always played an important role in the evolution of the financial services industry. Digital disruption is now occurring at every level – new competitors as well as innovative channels and processes are shifting the banking paradigm. This is accelerated by the rise of next generation customers in Asia who are much more mobile, socially connected and demanding for state-of-the-art services. Indeed, shifts in customer expectations, strict regulatory environments, as well as overall macroeconomic conditions are compelling financial institutions in the region to reassess their traditional strategies and approaches.
Customer centricity as a gateway to digital transformation
Customer centricity is leading to a new era in banking digital transformation. Furthermore, with Fintech entrants transforming the customer experience and reshaping customer engagement models, banks need to put more focus on a holistic 360-degree views of customer insights, to create innovative quality services.
With customers getting more mobile and social, banks need to focus on their transformation journey that delivers a digital experience for the customer. They need to offer services at anytime, anywhere, on any device, across any channel. It is important that the banking system is enhanced to integrate – so it can deliver an omni-channel experience for the customer across branches – whether physical, mobile or online services, and make transactions efficient.
Through integration, transactions – which get processed through the integrated front, middle to back-end systems, can be made more efficient. Technology solutions such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a good example of such integrated solutions. Many of our customers have transformed their customer experience through Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions that seamlessly integrate with front, middle and back office systems to support omni-channel transformation.
Digital transformation with a digital workforce
Digital transformation is about innovation. For banks to benefit effectively from the digital transformation journey, it is crucial to have an organization which is agile and innovative. Innovation often occurs by having cross-organizational teams working together that leads to a digital workplace, which enables people to become social, mobile and collaborative. A digital workforce is about working anywhere on any device with effective communication tools. Having a cloud based productivity tool such as Office 365 is a good example of how we have witnessed banks transform into a digital workforce.
Embracing digital technologies is not about upgrading an existing system but the larger goal is to basically change the way people work and collaborate. Digital workplace transformation needs to be primarily seen as a culture change. To realize its full potential and reap the benefits, a change of mind-set and behavior is a requisite. Ultimately it’s all about the organization gaining more agility, and breaking down the traditional silos, so teams can be more efficient and collaborate.
Innovation relies heavily on team collaboration. Very often banks choose social collaboration as the first step of digital workforce transformation. Through collaboration tools such as Yammer and Skype for Business, banks can have a common platform where virtual teams can work together, be more agile, and share knowledge without the need for restructuring. Such interoperability ensures that sales teams can work closely with product teams, creating a virtual environment conducive to brainstorming and innovation.
Data as a competitive advantage
Data – whether it is big or small, structured or unstructured – is expanding and the potential of data is endless. In today’s environment, financial institutions are seeing customer insights as the new currency. Combining current, more traditional data with less traditional, unstructured data streams, and feeding them into an analytics solution or through machine learning, offers financial institutions flexibility and high performance computing capabilities. These capabilities enable financial institutions to manage their risk exposures as well as gain customer insights to increase customer wallet share and stay ahead of the competition.
While data is pervasive, actionable intelligence from data is elusive. Customers want to transform data to intelligent action and reinvent their business processes. To do this they need to analyze massive amounts of data more easily – so they can move from seeing “what happened” and understanding “why it happened” to predicting “what will happen” and ultimately, knowing “what should I do”. The Cortana Analytics Suite is one such technology solution that brings about this vision by delivering big data and advanced analytics capabilities to help banks transform their data into intelligent action. Data analytics is core to digital transformation and data is a competitor’s advantage to banks.
Forward-thinking banks in Asia have already started using analytics to better target customers, manage risk and leverage predictive analysis with Microsoft Dynamics CRM in gaining a 360-degree view of customer insights. The Microsoft data platform is enabling more banks to have access to insight for decision making.
Cloud as a catalyst for digital transformation
More and more banks are now recognizing the effectiveness of implementing cloud based solutions as a central part of their digital and innovation strategies. Indeed, cloud is now seen as the catalyst for digital transformation, with enterprise IT spending in Southeast Asia estimated to reach $62 billion by 2018.
Microsoft technologies and solutions are enabling customers to improve transparency, meet regulatory requirements and stay competitive against non-traditional industry entrants. The Microsoft Cloud enables organizations to innovate faster, improve productivity, lower cost of ownership, achieve greater resource and business agility, attain a smaller carbon footprint – as well as enterprise-class availability, security, and reliability.
Key financial institutions who have successfully embarked on digital transformation programs, based on cloud capabilities, include Westpac, AIA, Metro Bank, KBC Bank, UBS and MUFG.
Additionally, cloud service providers like Microsoft have a role to play to continually educate the market on best practices around security, privacy, and transparency from a technology standpoint. Opting for a vendor that offers enterprise grade public and hybrid cloud solutions that comply with existing regulations and help customers, ensure their cloud initiatives are compliant.
Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online have been audited against some of the most rigorous global, regional and national procurement standards and cloud certifications. Microsoft has also been involved in new standards such as ISO/IEC 27018 – the first global standard for cloud privacy, which we were the first major cloud provider to support. Microsoft’s Cloud Decision Framework is also a good way to start in helping financial institutions address key concerns and challenges of using cloud services in this highly regulated industry. The time is now for banks in Asia to transform in order to be aligned to the digital era.
