Since March 2020, Financial Services IT organizations have been meeting new challenges caused by the pandemic and have also been forced to recognize the existing challenges, suddenly accelerated by the pandemic. Many of our customers in the financial services industry – or any other business for that matter – suddenly find themselves at a place where change is not something that is planned out and executed on in the future; change is now the new normal. Borrow from another ubiquitous advertising phrase, we may all be in this together, but someone has to lead the charge. The increasing complexity of business models in the financial services industry is top of mind for all who working in the industry. Globalization is having a significant impact. Regulations are changing, and so are the bodies who regulate the industry. Customers and consumers have more choices that ever before, with may able to switch allegiance overnight.
All of the above may seem like cause for concern, yet it only needs to be concerning for those who have not yet taken action to address change. Those who are champions of change can—and do—adapt to any changes in the market, the industry, or the economy by utilizing Agile methodologies and, in many cases, Atlassian tools, such as Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management, etc.
At Valiantys, we recognize that one of the best ways to accelerate change is to learn from those who have gone before. As such, in December we met with four Senior Leaders of Financial Services IT organisations – Paysafe Group, Generali Insurance, an Investment Management Company, and a European Financial Institution – to discuss what plans they had made and what they had learned from the past year of industry and global disruption. They have shared how they’ve successfully leveraged their experience, expertise, methodology, and tools to ensure that their organizations protect their business and continue to grow.
What they told us was that they had learned, both from successes and failures, to innovate and more rapidly deliver new products and services much faster than before – while keeping costs manageable and the business resilient.
"The technology part is actually less complicated than reinventing business models. That aspect of change is about culture, leadership, and transforming into something else."
They also mentioned that maintaining a successful Financial Services IT organisation was about having a cloud-ready blueprint, relentlessly focus on operational excellence and agile project delivery, and having visibility of data to construct insight into their performance and the behaviors of customers.
"Cloud gives the industry many kinds of new technologies that make digital disruption possible."
It also required a focus on value, with IT and operations being agile to pivot or persevere to accelerate and more successfully deliver quantifiable business benefits to the business while continuously improving operational resilience.
"The key takeaway is that in order to find success, one must employ strategic initiatives like KPI mapping, as an example. Returning to the basics of using Jira in the right way is important, especially in FinTech, an area in which people tend to get very excited about the possibilities of bots."
As Valiantys we have many years of experience and expertise in assisting global banking, financial services, and insurance businesses in creating opportunities from disruption through our tried and tested deployment of Atlassian tools (Jira, Jira Service Management, and Confluence). We support Financial Services organizations- like Societe Generale, Generali, AXA, QBE, and other Fintechs – in their agile and scaled agile journeys to embed business agility in both IT and operations. With that in mind, we have created a document compiling the experiences and practical advice of these industry leaders, that executives in the industry can use as a benchmark against their own efforts. Read this ebook on Financial Services IT, using agile methods and tools, to understand more about what our speakers have learned. When you are ready to accelerate your journey in technology and business agility give us a call at Valiantys – there is no value in delay.
