digitizing financial services: how mastery of digital differentiates leaders from laggards

Digitizing Financial Services

How mastery of digital differentiates leaders from laggards

May 2017

PUBLISHED IN COOPERATION WITH:

DIGITAL BUSINESS

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FOREWORD

Financial services executives believe digital innovations and strategies are key to

differentiating customer experience and business performance. In a period of intense

competition and relatively slow growth, executives also understand that failure to take

adequate steps in pursuit of these opportunities raises the risk of disruption or even

commercial irrelevance.

Today’s advanced technologies — accompanied by similar advances in processes for

technology development and implementation — are poised to transform the entire financial

services industry. Indeed, as they reassess their customer strategies in light of this

fast-evolving technological landscape, leaders see boundless opportunities to implement a

wide array of differentiating customer capabilities and experiences.

More clearly identifying the most profitable customers and building share of wallet; becoming

more responsive and better able to provide a consistently superior customer experience

across products, services and channels; optimizing costs whether through dynamic pricing

or straight-through processing — these are but a few of the most sought-after, value-laden,

yet perennially elusive strategies.

That is, until today. Leaders from all sectors of financial services are finding ways to harness

the fast-maturing capabilities of technologies ranging from big data to machine learning

and artificial intelligence (AI). Moreover, organizations and their advisers, consultants

and technology partners are able to point to frameworks and increasingly ready-to-run

solutions that are not only improving the odds for success but also accelerating results.

Forbes Insights, in partnership with Cognizant, recently surveyed more than 100 North

American senior financial services executives to learn how they are capitalizing on these

and other advanced technologies to provide value to their customers. The research shows

that executives overall believe 25% of their future growth will be driven by customer

experience-focused digital strategies and investments.

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| Digitizing Financial Services

3Digitizing Financial Services |

But what we also see is that those who self-identify as leaders — describing a wider array

of planning and implementation of new technologies at scale across the enterprise —

anticipate outperforming their industry peers. That is, those embracing significantly more

of these types of strategies and technologies expect significantly greater future growth. In

short, the means to achieve long-sought-after customer experience, retention, profitability

and related goals and ambitions has arrived.

The research further indicates that firms that fail to keep pace with these leaders face

heightened risks of disruption if not marketplace irrelevance. Structural challenges in the

industry remain. Achieving growth for financial services overall will prove challenging. But

as the accompanying research shows, with the right strategies and technologies, leaders

are poised for well-above-average performance. Have a look at the findings of our survey,

conducted in partnership with Forbes Insights, and let us know when you’re ready to expand

the discussion.

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Executives see a direct correlation between digitization of customer experience and the bottom line, attributing 25% of their future growth to customer experience-focused digital strategies and investments.

STATE OF PLAY: DIGITIZATION OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Financial executives are decidedly on board with the digitization of their customer strategies. Three

out of four believe that digital innovations and strategies are a key driver of differentiating customer

experience and, as a result, of business performance and growth. Over three-quarters agree that

fast-evolving technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning, will deliver

transformative and differentiating customer strategies, relationships and experiences.

Moreover, executives see a direct correlation between digitization of customer experience and the

bottom line, attributing 25% of their future growth to customer experience-focused digital strategies

and investments.

Failing to keep pace with digitization can be devastating. A vast majority of financial executives (71%)

believe that financial services firms that are not using today’s technologies to transform customer

strategies, relationships and experiences are at risk of disruption or obsolescence.


51%

28%

17%

1%3%

Strategic Imperatives Which of the following best describes your firm’s strategy regarding the provision of industry-leading and differentiating customer experiences?

59%

VERY STRONG (15% OR MORE)

STRONG (6% –15%)

STABLE/FLAT

5%

30%

18%

47%

24%

Overall

Overall

Overall

Leaders

Leaders

Leaders

Evaluating Growth Which of the following best describes your firm’s growth over the next three years?

n Fast follower

n Middle of the pack

n Leader

n Behind the pack

n Not certain

Note: Does not add to 100% due to rounding.

Figure 1

Figure 2

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Whether measured by AUM, deposits or turnover, leaders anticipate significantly higher percentage growth over the next three years.

LEADERSHIP PAYS

Just over one in six of survey participants

self-describe as leaders in the use of technology

to deliver industry-leading and differentiating

customer experiences (Fig. 1). Such assessments

hold up under scrutiny; throughout the research,

these leaders tend not only to use significantly

more high-tech tools but also to pursue a notice-

ably broader number of customer-focused

business strategies than others in the survey.

Note that leaders are in no way grouped into

any single sector of financial services, but rather

appear in everything from asset management

and brokerage to consumer or commercial bank-

ing and wealth management.

It’s also worth noting that in the past, many in the

financial services industry have suffered from the

silo effects of running stand-alone applications.

But leaders seem to believe that prior experience

along with advances in tools and processes — for

example, the embrace of lean technology prac-

tices — will help their organizations overcome

such pitfalls.

A particularly compelling finding is that these

leaders also anticipate significantly stronger

growth than their peers at large. Whether mea-

sured by AUM, deposits or turnover, leaders

anticipate significantly higher percentage growth

over the next three years (Fig. 2).

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BECOMING A LEADER: LEADERS PURSUE A WIDER RANGE OF STRATEGIES AND DEPLOY MORE TOOLS

Leaders are significantly more likely to view a wide range of strategic objectives as vital, and the

relevant tools as transformative. Strategies considered include everything from becoming more pre-

dictive across the customer experience to identifying customer needs as they arise and the pursuit of

dynamic pricing. In terms of achieving these objectives, leaders are also consistently more confident

that today’s advanced tools and solutions are leading to transformative results.

The list of strategies and tools is a long one. But in broad terms, the findings can be broken down into

three broad categories:

• Customer experience: Strategies that directly impact customer experience

• Customer operations: Strategies that can directly impact customer experience but tend to be a

bit more “behind the scenes” in nature

• “Other”: A mix of internal and customer-facing strategies and tools

Customer Experience

Across all core customer experience strategies, ranging from becoming more predictive and respon-

sive across the whole of the customer experience to gauging the total value of any discrete customer

relationship, leaders tend to ascribe significantly greater importance to these strategies (Fig. 3).

Assessing Customer Centricity How critical are the following objectives within your customer strategies?*

Overall Leaders

Become more predictive/responsive across the whole of the

customer experience76% 94%

Inform all points of contact — human and digital — with a current status/

history of the customer relationship70% 88%

Optimize the customer experience from end to end 74% 82%

Identify emerging opportunities based on customer behavior 67% 82%

Identify customer needs as they arise 66% 82%

Understand the total value of the customer relationship 61% 76%

*Using a scale from 1-5 where 1 = not important and 5 = very important; percentages are those respondents indicating a 4 or 5.

Figure 3


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Now turning to implementation, leaders are significantly more likely than other executives to indicate

that today’s fast-evolving technologies give them a leg up in achieving their goals (Fig. 4).

Customer Operations

This observed pattern — leaders finding the range of customer strategies/actions to be more critical

and the associated digital solutions more effective — repeats across a wide range of additional

operational issues and metrics (Figs. 5 and 6).

The Transformation Mandate In which of the following areas do you believe new technologies can deliver transformative and differentiating improvements at scale for your firm?

Overall Leaders

Become more predictive/responsive across the whole of the customer experience 26% 35%

Optimize the customer experience from end to end 38% 41%

Inform all points of contact — human and digital — with a current status/history of the

customer relationship50% 71%

Identify emerging opportunities based on customer behavior 50% 59%

Identify customer needs as they arise 45% 65%

Understand the total value of the customer relationship 51% 77%

Figure 4


Figure 5

Overall Leaders

Optimize pricing — dynamically 65% 100%

Streamlined operations and reduced costs 75% (2nd) 94%

More customer referrals 71% (3rd) 88%

Stronger customer retention 66% 88%

Improved social media scores 65% 88%

Improved customer satisfaction rankings 77% (1st) 82%

Greater transaction volume/sales with existing clients/ customers 60% 82%

Greater market share 68% 82%

More optimized marketing spend 66% 82%

Improved client/customer acquisition/lead generation 57% 76%

Clearer understanding of costs to service/profitability of discrete customers 64% 59%

Assessing Customer Centricity How critical are the following objectives within your customer strategies?*

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Figure 6

Gauging Digital Technology’s Promise In which of the following do you believe new technologies can deliver transformative and differentiating improvements at scale for your firm?

Overall Leaders

Optimize pricing — dynamically 28% 41%

Streamlined operations and reduced costs 26% 35%

More customer referrals 41% 47%

Stronger customer retention 36% 47%

Improved social media scores 29% 41%

Improved customer satisfaction rankings 50% 71%

Greater transaction volume/sales with existing clients/ customers 42% 53%

Greater market share 51% 59%

More optimized marketing spend 25% 35%

Improved client/customer acquisition/lead generation 41% 53%

Clearer understanding of costs to service/profitability of discrete customers 30% 65%

Assessing Customer Centricity How critical are the following objectives to your customer strategy*?


Figure 7

Overall Leaders

Enhance data privacy and security 84% (1st) 94%

Pursue cross-selling/upselling opportunities 65% 94%

Provide appropriate alerts/suggestions to customers via customer-preferred channels 79% (2nd) 88%

Improve chat, video, search, desktop and mobile tools for customers 76% (3rd) 88%

Improve analytics/visualizations/dashboards provided to customers 67% 88%

Augment in-person interactions with greater technology for added value/insight/ease 63% 88%

Provide more accurate and current information in the hands of agents 70% 82%

Identify/align customer identity/history across channels 67% 82%

Improve self-service/online 68% 76%

Align/stratify sales/service processes and costs to the actual estimated

value of individual customers61% 65%

Provide greater access to “live” expertise by virtual means (e.g., “tele-advisory”) 61% 59%


‘Other’ Key Customer-Centric Strategies/Objectives

The pattern continues when reviewing a range of “other” customer-focused strategies and objectives,

ranging from the enhancement of data privacy and security to improving analytics and dashboards to

improving online self-service. Leaders are more likely to view such strategies as important as well as

view the associated tools as transformative (Figs. 7 and 8).

Summarizing the range of customer experience, customer operations and other related strategies,

the survey shows that while executives overall see enormous value in digital solutions, leaders are:

• More likely to pursue a broader range of strategies

• More likely to use more tools and technologies

• Find the tools and technologies more effective than the sample at large

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Gauging Digital Technology’s Promise Which of the following are areas where you believe new technologies can deliver transformative and differentiating improvements at scale for your firm?

Overall Leaders

Enhance data privacy and security 32 35%

Pursue cross-selling/upselling opportunities 26% 18%

Provide appropriate alerts/suggestions to customers via customer-preferred channels 31% 29%

Improve chat, video, search, desktop and mobile tools for customers 38% 65%

Improve analytics/visualizations/dashboards provided to customers 29% 47%

Augment in-person interactions with greater technology for added value/insight/ease 28% 29%

Provide more accurate and current information in the hands of agents 36% 24%

Identify/align customer identity/history across channels 41% 65%

Improve self-service/online 48% 47%

Align/stratify sales/service processes and costs to the actual

estimated value of individual customers27% 41%

Provide greater access to “live” expertise by virtual means (e.g., “tele-advisory”) 40% 59%

Figure 8

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PAYOFF PROFILES: WHY AREN’T MORE FIRMS DIGITIZING FASTER?

Leaders are already well ahead of the pack when it comes to harnessing technology, and thus,

are anticipating strong future results. Overall, a solid majority of respondents agree such results

are likely for those who invest in these tools and technologies. This highlights that there are far

more executives recognizing the potential for differentiating value than there are firms actually

adopting the accompanying strategies and processes. The question becomes — why aren’t more firms

moving faster?

Deployments Lag Perceived Opportunities

Four out of five executives believe advanced mobile applications can deliver differentiating results in

terms of the sorts of strategies and objectives discussed throughout the research. And yet, only 35%

overall report an extensive deployment of advanced mobile applications — compared with 65% of

leaders. The same is true of big data, where 79% see the differentiating potential, but only 24% are

fully deployed (35% of leaders).

Technology’s Market-Distinguishing Capabilities Do these tools carry differentiating potential? Are you taking action?

Differentiatingpotentiala

Extensive deployment

Limited deployment

Prototyping/ proof of concept

Advanced mobile applications 80% 35% (65%b) 32% 27%

Big data 79% 24% (35%b) 40% 29%

APIs 73% 37% 26% 29%

AI 72% 23% 31% 31% (41%b)

Robo-advisory 72% 24% 37% 19%

IoT 70% 31% 32% (41%b) 24%

Telepresence 70% 33% (24%b) 39% 21%

Mobile apps 68% 30% (47%b) 34% 30%

Machine learning 66% 28% 42% (53%b) 16%

Robotics 61% 19% 31% (41%b) 29%

Augmented reality 59% 21% 29% 32% (47%b)

a Using a scale from 1-5 where 1 = the technology has no differentiating potential and 5 = the technology has very significant differen-tiating potential; percentages are those respondents indicating a 4 or 5. b (%) = leaders.

Figure 9

{--------------------------------------- Taking action? ----------------------------------------}

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There are far more executives recognizing the potential for differentiating value than there are firms actually adopting the accompanying strategies and processes.


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But the figures for those indicating they have extensive deployments of today’s digital tools are vastly

lower than for those who see the differentiating potential (Fig. 9).

What’s Holding Companies Back?

The survey reveals there are a number of potential roadblocks in place which explains why so many

leaders see potential benefits yet have not extensively deployed these technologies to enable growth.

For example, 43% of respondents say their companies prefer to be fast followers due to the perceived

high costs of being a first mover (Fig. 10). Others point to difficulties ranging from talent shortages

to an inability to allocate development costs across the enterprise. And while not expressly tested by

the survey, legacy investments are also likely a significant inhibitor.

Arraying the Obstacles to Success Which of the following are significant impediments to your progress in using today’s technologies to improve customers strategies, relationships and experiences?

43%

41%

41%

36%

30%

High costs of being “first to move”

Talent/lack of needed skill sets

Insufficient technology budget

Difficulty in defining the value/developing the business case

Inability to allocate the development costs across the enterprise

29%

26%

26%

17%

9%

Limited “first mover” advantage

Data privacy and security risks

Too many competing projects

Regulatory isuues

No senior management backing

Figure 10

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How Soon the Payoff?

Regardless of the degree of any given implementation or the challenges incurred, firms believe that

transformative results will be relatively fast to materialize. For example, 60% of respondents believe

that big data programs begin delivering transformative results within a single year; 55% believe the

same regarding mobile applications/solutions, 54% for advanced mobile apps and 52% for APIs

(Fig. 11).

The Competitive Advantage Count Down When will these technologies begin delivering transformative/differentiating benefits?

Within 1 Year

Within 2 Years

Within 3 Years

Big data 60% 30% 7%

Mobile applications/solutions 55% 32% 13%

Advanced mobile apps 54% (67%b) 35% 8%

APIs 52% 34% 14%

Telepresence 48% (80%b) 44% 8%

IoT 48% (80%b) 38% 10%

AI 44% 44% 12%

Robotics 43% 21% 29%

Machine learning 31% (67%b) 56% 6%

Augmented reality 32% 53% 16%

Robo-advisory 29% 48% 19%

b (%) = leaders.

Figure 11

For several technologies, however, the belief is that transformative results will require additional time.

Only 31% believe machine learning will pay off within a single year; over half (56%) say this will

require up to two years. Augmented reality and robo-advisory are two more areas where the majority

of executives see transformative benefits requiring more than one year to achieve fruition. Note,

however, leaders in many instances see results materializing significantly sooner than others in the

survey.

Combining these rapid payoff periods with two earlier mentioned findings — executives overall believe

that 25% of their future growth will be attributed to customer experience-focused digital strategies,

and leaders anticipate significantly stronger growth over the next three years — it becomes clear that

investments in technology are, and can be, expected to continue to provide both rapid and significant

payoffs.


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FIRST MOVERS ARE REALIZING THE ADVANTAGE

Companies across the board, whether they are leaders in accompanying investment or not, recognize

the profound competitive value of technology as well as the disruptive forces at play. They also rec-

ognize the potential of a wide range of customer-focused strategies that can be digitally enhanced to

deliver differentiating results.

Leaders share the same views. But this group is taking on more customer experience improvement

challenges and using more tools to achieve their ends. Leaders also believe their companies will be

reaping commensurate rewards.

All of this means that financial services executives need to take a closer look at the risk/reward pro-

files inherent in today’s customer-focused technologies and reevaluate their pace of deployment. The

survey demonstrates that first-mover advantage is readily apparent, and payoffs will be rapid and

significant.

Financial services executives need to reevaluate their pace of deployment.

METHODOLOGY

The data in this report is based on a survey of 101 North American finan-

cial services executives. All executives were senior leaders in investment

banking/brokerage (22%), asset management (20%), wealth management

(16%), retail banking (13%) or commercial banking (13%), with the remain-

ing 16% coming from other financial institutions. A vast majority (69%)

were C-level executives, and the rest held VP, SVP, or EVP titles. All execu-

tives work at companies with at least $1 billion in AUM.

This report was written by Forbes Insights with the analytical guidance

of Philippe Dintrans Chief Digital Officer & Global Leader of Cognizant

Business Consulting’s Banking and Financial Services Practice. To learn

more, please contact Diana Buxton, Cognizant Banking & Financial Services’

Chief Marketing Officer, @ [email protected].


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ABOUT FORBES INSIGHTS

Forbes Insights is the strategic research and thought leadership practice of Forbes Media, a global media, branding and technology company whose combined platforms reach nearly 75 million business decision makers worldwide monthly. By leveraging proprietary databases of senior-level executives in the Forbes community, Forbes Insights conducts research on a wide range of topics to position brands as thought leaders and drive stakeholder engagement. Research findings are delivered through a variety of digital, print and live executions, and amplified across Forbes’ social and media platforms.

ABOUT COGNIZANT BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES

Cognizant’s Banking and Financial Services business unit, which includes consumer lending, commercial finance, leasing insurance, cards, payments, banking, investment banking, wealth management and transaction processing is the company’s largest industry segment, serving leading financial institutions in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. These include 17 of the top 20 North American financial institu-tions and nine out of the top 10 European banks. The business unit leverages its deep domain and consulting expertise to provide solutions across the entire financial services spectrum, and enables our clients to manage business transformation challenges, drive revenue and cost optimization, create new capabilities, mitigate risks, comply with regulations, capitalize on new business opportunities, and drive efficiency, effectiveness, innovation and virtualization. Learn how Cognizant’s Banking and Financial services practice helps clients lead with digital at www.cognizant.com/banking-financial-services or follow us @Cognizant.

ABOUT COGNIZANT

Cognizant (NASDAQ-100: CTSH) is one of the world’s leading professional services companies, transforming clients’ business, operating and technology models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build and run more innova-tive and efficient businesses. Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant is ranked 230 on the Fortune 500 and is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world. Learn how Cognizant helps clients lead with digital at www.cognizant.com or follow us @Cognizant.

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digitizing financial services: how mastery of digital differentiates leaders from laggards

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