Am I Imposing IT or Enabling IT for Am I Imposing IT or Enabling IT for Am I Imposing IT or Enabling IT for Am I Imposing IT or Enabling IT for

transforming my Bank?transforming my Bank?transforming my Bank?transforming my Bank? IT plays an important role in terms of rationalization and optimization of business processes of a bank.

Need is not to make customer technology savvy but to make technology customer savvy in order to make

a transformation successful. Following questions can be asked when going for a transformation in terms

of IT

1. Is Service Oriented Architecture is really providing a better banking service rather

than a better IT response times, scalability and performance

2. How I can make my system more intelligent to interpret customer events and

capture the right data with an automation of business process and then target

the dependent systems to be rationalized and optimized

• Instead of Core Banking transformation it should be Loan Management

system Transformation, Deposits and Savings system Transformation

• Revamp of infrastructure should be more focused on customer segments

rather than volume of data and consolidation of systems e.g. a better

application server for portal supporting internet banking with highly

scalable and distributed architecture should not be a focus, the right

focus should be utilization of application server clusters of loan

management, deposit management, insurance products which can

independently serve customer demands.

• Lastly when we are talk about digital transformation, it should be

prioritized as per customer segments, product families, capabilities at

front office, back office and middle office to be integrated and last but

not the least customer priorities on various transactions.

3. Automation should not be misinterpreted by use of Java, Dot net or some other

technology. Automation is more on serving customer at the right place, with right

output and at the right event initiated by the customer. Here SOA plays an

important role in terms of capturing right business rules, events at which those

business rules will be fired and last but not the least which channel will cater to

those which business rules.

Is it really a Digital Transformation?Is it really a Digital Transformation?Is it really a Digital Transformation?Is it really a Digital Transformation?

Now if I am considering retail banking digital transformation it is more on

application of digital technology and utilization of digital method instead of

traditional methods. This is more to make your systems more knowledge based

to educate customers rather than technology enabled. First and foremost activity

for a digital transformation initiative is to explore the bank’s capabilities which

are unknown to customers and what are digital channels a customer can use to

get a visibility of that capability. Are internal and external (customer)

stakeholders of the bank can equally utilize a digital channels to expose a

capability effectively and efficiently to generate a win-win situation for customers

and the bank. Digital transformation again should be influenced by services

provided to the customer. Here Solution Architectures, IT Architectures should

adapt a collaborative approach to how to integrate and introduce digital channels

to achieve a business result.

It’s Customer Transformation notIt’s Customer Transformation notIt’s Customer Transformation notIt’s Customer Transformation not Digital TransformationDigital TransformationDigital TransformationDigital Transformation

Take an example of transforming a rural bank where priorities of most of the customers is to go for an

agriculture loan, apply for fixed deposits and use of ATM’s for cash deposits and withdrawals.

I introduce online portal, mobile banking and other functionalities and start offering it to existing as well

as potential customers. Is it the right way for digital transformation?

What if I educate customer to use technology for the right purpose at the right need. Say Fixed deposit

process is cumbersome and there are bottlenecks in terms of filling of forms at the time of maturity and

customer can’t get the information on how a matured value of money can be linked to his savings and

current accounts. Following are steps which can lead to an incremental and successful transformation

• Bank has already enabled ATM kiosk’s for money withdrawals where there can

be events to plan for digital transformation of fixed deposit capability of the bank.

Customer seeing his account balance on ATM immediately gets an SMS on his

mobile phone with the possibility of new FD products as per his balance.

• An automated call can be enabled to connect the customer to right

representative to get more visibility of a FD product.

• Customer can be emailed right links to an online portal to explore FD products

based on his account balance.

• Alerts can also be set for cross sell and up sell possibilities of a capability say a

discount of 5% on vehicle loan if agriculture loan applied is crossing a specified

amount.

A Successful Digital JourneyA Successful Digital JourneyA Successful Digital JourneyA Successful Digital Journey

Digital transformation should be focused on business priorities and customer preferences. Initial

transformation get alerts on mobile phones for fixed deposits can further lead to integration of FD

functionality with Loan functionality and display products data either on his phone or via email.

Later an introduction of online portal where customer can analyze and compare products as per his

account balance. Customer can login on the portal and can be redirected to loan products as per his

account history as well as saving habits. Say a student loan offered to a rural customer if he constantly

uses a fixed deposit product for his family education.

Here there is a choice between imposing technology for faster transactions, simplify process and reduce

cost and enabling technology for empowering customers to solve their problems which they could not

solve by themselves. So plan for digital transformation should answer customer questions which can make

a bank enabler resulting a customer taking more interest in his day to day banking activities. Focus on

your banking capabilities, relate it with customer priorities. See what channels can be better used for a

capability to be exposed to customer. This is more on integrating customers with bank representatives

exploring customer issues and resolve them with an incremental digital transformation.