As technology further ingrains in the mechanisms of daily life alongside burgeoning consumer adeptness, an onus falls on businesses to keep pace. Despite decades of corporate talk and experimentation, is change finally coming for the largely piecemeal, unfocused, and ineffective digitization strategies?
Within financial services, companies need to figure out where in the innovation pack they want to fall, their main focal points and the optimal balance of in-house development and strategic partnerships.
This study from Arizent — parent company of American Banker, National Mortgage News, PaymentsSource, Digital Insurance and Financial Planning— explores the compounding effects of how business leaders drive innovation through organization, culture and processes in tandem with external sources.
Key findings include
- Among companies actively pursuing innovation, only about half have a documented strategy or roadmap in place. This waterfalls over to organizations having supportive policies and tools in place to advance innovation. Those that do show the best results.
- Customer experience drives most innovation initiatives. However, businesses must also prioritize furthering their back office tech stack to avoid building a house of cards.
- A majority of stakeholders admitted their organizations haven’t aligned their technology roadmap and investments with key areas of innovation — a critical gap that could undermine future success.
- Adopting corporate innovation programs is still relatively nascent. The most common course of action (establishing a dedicated innovation team) is taken by less than half of those surveyed. While only 10% report implementing open innovation programs like hackathons, demo days or establishing a dedicated innovation lab, that’s poised to double in the next two years.