Digitization – A new reality for Finance and Business

By the year 2020, the entire generation will grow up in a primarily digital world. Increasing reliance on technology and demands for the things that are fast, easy and mobile is driving a movement toward digitalization. Digital trends are changing consumer’s demands and expectations, the way the business must operate and the talent dynamics in the market. Digitalization will reach a high point in the next few years due to three significant forces; i.e. Consumer Pull, Technology Push and Economic Benefits.

Changing consumer behaviour and preferences has forced the financial institutions to develop such practices that will allow smooth functioning of digital channels, providing seamless experience.

Since decades, the financial industry has experienced a continuous evolution in service delivery due to digitalization. But there has been a shift in the focus of digitalization from improving the delivery of traditional tasks to introducing fundamentally new business opportunities & models for financial service companies.

In today’s digital world, finance has become more agile, forward looking and decision centric. Digitalization of finance is dramatically altering the existing finance industry and changing the nature and conduct of business thereby shifting the value prepositions. Finance leaders today have a huge opportunity to play a lead role in shaping the digital agenda of the organization. Digital transformation of finance holds the key to make this shift work towards a digital organization.

Financial services organizations must look outside the customer experience box and ensure that the business comes together to define how the organization can successfully create the “digital umbrella” across the whole organization.

In India and around the world, banking industry is going through changes with major shifts in technology, digitizing the entire banking process and redefining new ways of doing business. Payment banks and small finance banks are also entering the system thereby increasing the battle for customer loyalty and growth. Financial services needs to go beyond commonly-held notions of being digital.

Although the digital technology has changes the face of banking. But innovation just for the sake of innovation is a waste; it must have a genuine customer benefit. Jumping into whatever is trending will not ensure relevance and engagement; it’s better to get things right and offer a flawless experience within existing channels rather than provide an average-quality service across a myriad of channels.

The banks should ensure a superior experience in existing delivery channels before launching additional ones to bring perfection in execution of existing channels and focusing on the service quality.

Today’s advanced technologies 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.

With the digital shifts in core business, finance needs to enable and drive the change rather than being stuck in the past.