Reaching Digital Transformation is All About Keeping Pace

Building ecosystems to open up businesses is the current digital transformation trend that is pretty clear. Customers are no longer choosing the most affordable services, but rather those that can guarantee easy and frictionless experience. To attract those customers, you need to offer a lot of innovative solutions that go far beyond standard banking products. And it has to happen fast to adapt to the pace of the modern world. So, leveraging technology as a quick and certain way to fill this gap is an appealing thought, but it rather needs to be done with a cool head and a well-devised plan.

Technology is no longer a simple mean to an end, but became the key factor and a driving force for changes in modern banking. Taking a step towards microservices-based architecture will not only facilitate the changes, but also enable new opportunities. However, instead of believing in a magical unicorn of a complete transformation within a single year, it’s much wiser to bridge the gap between the business and IT by encouraging them to work together in delivering new value to your customers. Once they decide on the value that should be brought to the market in the quickest time with the maximum return on the investment possible, they can gradually launch the change.

That’s exactly where Comarch Open Platform comes in handy, offering perfect balance between buying a solution based on ready-made modules and building with set of proven tools and building blocks. On the one hand not forgetting about existing platforms and partnerships that can be deployed within the ecosystem to not disrupt user experience, on the other hand building and delivering new values as well as processes build from the well-connected and already existing solutions and integrations with external solutions. And, thanks to the openness of the platform, you can introduce new solutions and processes one by one, eliminating all the risks we’ve seen materialized during the big bang projects.

This requires a shift in mentality when it comes to planning such initiatives. The full scope defined under one huge RFP is completed in a defined period of time, which is usually under 12–18 months. As much as exciting it sounds, it is simply unfeasible. Starting with the procurement process itself, with huge scope comes multiple dependencies and high costs, so the probability that such project will be rejected is rather high. Therefore, the support for the initiative from the C-level management is as much important as a bottom-up initiative. Getting this support will be easier for step-by-step transformations.

Other aspects of project planning would also go smoother for case-by-case implementation. And it’s often easier to design this step if you truly unlearn everything that you know from your many years of experience and start with a blank check. The beauty of leveraging modern technology to introduce new values is that you can redesign the whole process. Putting your user in the center of the change should mean truly listening to their needs and making them happy instead of migrating the exact same value to newer environment. Adding some personal touch using the configurability and extensibility of the platform will only improve customer satisfaction, so much needed when it comes to maintaining your customer base and acquiring the new ones.

Carefully planning the delivery of well-established business cases is a key factor in successful digital transformation in our fast-changing reality. Keeping in mind that it’s an ongoing process rather than a simple one-time project makes it easier to set up the priorities straight and introduce this mental change on each level of your company. This progressive approach not only eliminates multiple risks on the way but also guarantees your customers’ satisfaction throughout the whole journey.

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Author: Julia Sobolewska, Consulting Director