Industry Perspectives

The financial services industry is continuously challenged by economic indicators that impact the global environment and the necessary resilience every business desires. Gaining confidence in business continuity capabilities requires that business trends and requirements for successful outcomes are considered and acted upon. For financial services organizations, a steady focus on digital innovation and transformation is necessary to meet consumer and business demands, enabling the path to excellence in business processes and workforce readiness. Ventana Research has identified three key business trends every financial services group should address.

Top of mind must be the customer experience – providing support to meet customers’ needs in the most effective manner possible. Evolving consumer expectations continue to focus on efficiency in every interaction of their journey, no matter if by mobile device or by brand location. Personalization is expected in these interactions, addressed by gathering intelligence during each engagement, which enables a successful experience delivered in a digitally efficient manner. The imperative of this trend is to ensure that customer loyalty and profitability are achieved through a focus on effectiveness of the interactions.

Corporate sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts have become vitally important to customers and stakeholders. Specifically, organizations are focused on meeting industry and corporate expectations to minimize the carbon footprint in the most economic manner. Financial services institutions have an opportunity to establish continuous investment and improvement to ESG efforts, tracking carbon footprint reductions. As the United States trails European Union regulations, the global economy has begun to dictate that business planning and execution needs to be assessed in this carbon dimension and contribute to actions and decisions, ranging from the physical location of where an organization operates or whether workers need to travel and work in a corporate office to an organization’s computing energy consumption and how it impacts the environment.

Our third business trend critical for financial services groups is the ability to meet hybrid workplace requirements that address employee expectations, supporting worker retention and desired performance. Resulting from the global pandemic was the stark reality that operations in every financial services organization adapted to a work-from-home structure. Simultaneously, as the pandemic eases, the workforce has expressed a desire to adopt a hybrid approach, working some days from home and others in the office. This shift in worker and manager preferences places pressure on HR and corporate management to determine how to navigate the path forward while maintaining an employee experience and satisfaction that supports retention and loyalty.

The financial services industry is working through a significant economic, business and digital transformation that requires innovation in how it operates to meet customer and stakeholder expectations. The interconnected aspect of efficiency in interactions with customers, the sustainability of how it operates and the desired hybrid workplace approach must be considered together for a more connected and unified approach. Through 2025, one-quarter of organizations in financial services will lack effective collaboration for digital business and will reassess the communications and interactions with workforce and constituents. The transition to how the experiences of customers and employees match business processes now requires a more resilient approach to digital business. The impact is significant in how financial institutions navigate through the transformation while maintaining financial and customer profitability.

Financial institutions should assess organizational readiness to meet the pressures of these economic and industry trends. How organizations adapt and develop a responding sense of urgency will determine effectiveness as measured by loyalty and profitability of customers and workers. Ventana Research recommends that financial institutions adapt and transform to be digitally effective in business processes and operations. The risk in not being progressive, resilient and ready to meet these trends can significantly impact results expected across the organization.