June 2016

Challenge – evolving the digitisation culture

Banks can attract the digital talent needed to evolve their offerings, but do they really have the culture?

Internal structures and processes can often prove to be restrictive, making it hard to innovate from within. Instead, many banks are looking at how they can work in conjunction with external companies by using ‘lab’-type formats – empowering digital teams to develop, experiment, and evolve propositions before integrating them back into the larger corporate structure in a manner that is aligned with the wider digital strategy of the business.

Rather than piloting a project and then facing insurmountable obstacles, these experiments provide ‘risk-free play grounds’ to try out new technologies and provide the company with the option of mainstreaming them only if they become viable. This significantly reduces the risks associated with large-scale changes and increases the chances of delivering a favourable outcome.

Major consulting firm Accenture suggests following this ‘path’ to profitable digitization:

1.Awareness and ownership around digitisation.

Throughout the organisation, people should understand what digitalisation is and what advantages it offers – this fosters a sense of ownership about this process.

2.Design a digitisation roadmap.

Customers should be at the centre of this roadmap. The design should include tactics for using digital technologies to strengthen a bank’s understanding of existing and future customers. In this model, fostering participation of leaders from all ranks, by designing a ‘digital business value tree’ and considering potential digital operating models is important. In this roadmap, technology and skills required to harness the true power of digital assets to deliver the desired customer value has to be demonstrated.

3.Digitise the business model.

In this approach, it is necessary to make the right choices about customer-value proposition, resources, profit formula, and performance metrics, and to nurture capabilities and culture needed to support the business model and transform digitisation into a driver of profitable growth.

It is clear that the digitisation journey will not be easy. However, by breaking it down into stages and taking a disciplined approach, Indian businesses can go beyond merely doing better. Ultimately, they can transform their businesses by activating new sources of revenue that take full advantage of India’s rapid digital growth.