Digital Transformation in the FSI Sector

Author: Dawn Wills

A new report from Econsultancy explores the approaches new entrants are taking and their focus on the customer experience and marketers' responses to challenges, as well as providing recommendations on approaches to and opportunities related to digital transformation.

The financial services industry has seen more disruption in the last few years and continues to face significant challenges as new players are seizing the opportunity to enter these markets and new models emerge.

This new report is based upon in-depth interviews with senior executives across the financial services and insurance industries. Findings show that:

- Customer experience continues to be a major focus for marketers and new entrants are focusing on differentiating the customer experience and making the financial lives of customers easy.

- Having the right strategy and culture to deliver digital transformation is seen as essential with strong leadership from the top.

- Data is perceived as being a huge part of the digital transformation journey.

The Executive Summary states that:

Customers are demanding the brilliant experiences they see with service providers in other industries and this is putting pressure on companies in the sector to respond. New players are coming into the market with services built around a more mobile-friendly interface which focuses on delivering superior customer experiences. As customer banking data is opened up to third parties, new propositions will continue to emerge.

Building on our previous reports on digital transformation in the FSI sector1 , this report will look at the approach some of the new entrants are taking as they seek to differentiate themselves from the established players, as well as how incumbent players are continuing to drive forward their own digital transformation. The following are key themes emerging from the interviews conducted for this research:

New market entrants are seizing the opportunity

New players in the FSI sector are seizing upon the opportunity to create better products and services than the established companies by focusing on key offerings and being totally customercentric, using customer experience as a point of differentiation. 

1. Mobile at the core of the offering. New players are focusing on mobile technologies for the generation of people who rely on their smartphones for accessing products and services. They aim to make life easier for customers and are focusing on removing friction from existing processes.

2. Making the financial lives of customers easy. New entrants have the advantage of being agile and are capable of responding rapidly to changing needs. They have built their companies in such a way that works for today’s customers so they can focus on the experience delivered around the product, with useful features focused on making their financial life easy.

3. Digital first. Some incumbent businesses talked about the need to be effective at utilising all of the digital tactics and tools being used by smaller competitors, and making sure that all new products or services work digitally first.

Click here for details of report content and how to access the full findings: http://bit.ly/2skVrXK