You have just been made in-charge of digitally transforming your business. The task is not defined very clearly but you understand that though technology is a big part of it, it’s not just a technology problem. To fully digitally transform the business, you have to address processes, culture and your legacy systems on which the critical parts of your business run.

In this article, we will address some of the following questions and challenges that will help you in your transformation journey:

  • Are your legacy systems holding you back?
  • Is your user-experience up to par with your industry peers?
  • Are your digital channels generating revenue?
  • Are your costs of digital channels through the roof?
  • Are you confident about the security of your digital channels?
  • Do you consider yourself a leader in your market category?
  • Are you able to get new products and services to market on time?
  • Are you addressing any of the above challenges head on?

Where do you even begin? It seems that the best place to start could be to introduce change through a high-profile project. A project that can demonstrate the success of your digital initiative and create enthusiasm around digitization. This will get people in your organization behind this initiative and you can start to impact the culture.

To tie the whole thing together it’s important to have all the major components of your digital transformation initiative in your program. In today’s world, where everything is going mobile, there is no better project than mobile banking to jump start your digital transformation journey.

But first things first, you need a platform to address the legacy systems and start introducing digital constructs into your business. Your bank has been around for decades and understandably runs on decades old systems. That is how most of your vendors work as well. Releasing anything new, however small, can take months and sometimes years. If we approach this as a puzzle to be solved instead of being paralyzed by the sheer size of it, it can be solved. We will start with the introduction of a technology platform that will allow you to move fast, protect your legacy systems and introduce all the services that you need today in this digital world.

The Digital Server

The best way to open up legacy services and introduce new capabilities in the area of customer communication, sales and self-service is to introduce a digital server that comes with all these capabilities built in. To prepare your enterprise for digital services and products the ability to iterate and develop various components in parallel is also extremely important.

A platform that allows new modules to be created incrementally and often times in-house or by third parties is a robust way to accelerate introduction of new capabilities in a very short time-to-market.

Some examples of the enterprise capabilities are, security services, content and data management, localization, user management, monitoring and so on. And the functional modules that any modern digital solution requires include examples like open APIs (PSD2), Loyalty, Chatbots, Multi Banking capabilities, Instant Payments, etc.

One of the most important gain you will notice are in your security infrastructure. The platform provides end-to-end security while balancing user experience. Threats like man-on-the-device, man-in-the-middle and various server-side attacks like DDoS become a thing of the past.

A new mobile channel

The digital server will give you a solid platform on which to launch new services. A mobile banking solution that opens up all your banking services to the customers, provides personalized communication and recommendations and helps people better manage their financial life is the best place to start in your digital journey.

Typically, it is possible to launch such a solution in 3-6 months. Now your bank has truly entered the new digital age and the quality of service is at par with the best in the industry.

An Agile and DevOps culture

The capability to continuously deliver on top of the platforms is what can really multiply your return on investment (RoI) and help you lead in your category in the market. The mobile banking project introduces Agile methodology into your organization with release cycles as short as two weeks. The cultural shift will make people take ownership of the solution and motivate them to stay ahead of the competition.

Just do it

In 2018-19, it is now absolutely clear that mobile is the future of your digital banking capabilities. The cost to stick with a non-performing solution or not having it at all is inexcusable. Many global banks have successfully launched such platforms and transformed their banks using the approach highlighted above.

Please contact us at digital@zentity.com for a free on-site workshop. Download a case-study to learn more about a similar Digital Transformation journey at http://www.zentity.com/group-mobile.