Blog Articles
Outside In: Iterate to Innovate
New technology is often implemented by large companies to solve specific problems. Once the initial purpose has been achieved, the technology becomes part of the business as usual or “BAU” infrastructure. But instead of relegating a new functionality to the “new normal” category, it is useful to consider it as a catalyst for change – both in external, customer facing projects and in internal, IT development planning. Skandia, Sweden’s largest insurance company, implemented OutRank to offer customers a superior tool to better understand their pensions and investments. Working together with the Kidbrooke team, the Skandia executives saw the positive impact that a user-friendly customer interface had on sales as well as customer retention.
How to Avoid Legacy Traps When Building Digital Wealth Services
Wealth managers often build customer journey islands when introducing a new service or feature. Opting instead for use case-agnostic technology that supports all components of the organization’s strategic roadmap can grant a financial institution the necessary flexibility to achieve a strategic freedom to innovate.
From Digital First to API First: Benefits for Financial Institutions
The race for financial institutions to go digital, digitise their legacy systems or be “digital first” shows no sign of letting up. Customers expect a seamless journey and internal stakeholders will only invest in technology that is robust, cost-effective, secure and extensible into the future. What does extensible mean? In the world of programming, it refers to a language, a system that can be changed by being extended or adding features. In other words, you don’t want to invest in technology that is static or fixed, because it will become obsolete. Can adopting APIs before you transform your entire technology infrastructure to a digital operation give you a competitive advantage?
Fast and slow data: How to enable fast, interactive customer journeys based on slow mathematical models
When it comes to digital journeys, one characteristic defines quality beyond industrial specifics: speed. While rule-based apps or websites are relatively easy to keep lean and quick, the financial industry may be the area where the speed of underlying calculations could be an issue. Unlike e-commerce or media, the digital and physical solutions provided by the financial sector are riddled with computationally heavy models trying to grasp the uncertainty of real-world economies. The more granular and elaborate the underlying model is, the more realistic and accurate its results are. Does it mean that the financial institutions will have to compromise on quality to deliver fast solutions? Today we have spoken to Erik Brodin, an ex-McKinsey quant expert at Kidbrooke, who doesn’t believe a compromise is necessary.