There has been a boost in the need for innovation during COVID-19 pandemic, new technologies, and cost efficiencies, thus promoting an organization’s digital transformation journey. The financial service sector is considered the most essential one and most of the organizations have found new ways of managing operations to rely on the present scenario and shape the new normal accordingly.
The financial service sector is focusing on rebooting the new business models on value generation, revenue sources, and differentiated customer experiences. Therefore, a large number of such institutions are replacing their existing employee engagement models (work protocols, onboarding/training, collaboration, performance management), re-estimating the customer engagement models (remote sales/service), and stabilizing the cost optimization model and revenue generation preferences.
The remote workplace, lack of physical employee connection, and distributed infrastructure had created challenges for financial services to maintain their business continuity. They also face difficulty to ensure the safety of employees and the company’s operations. Pitchai Mahalingam, Head of the Operations & Technology Department, Federal Bank, shared his experience that, automation in recruitment and onboarding of new employees has helped a lot to make a tremendous improvement. They had adopted new digital models and mobile ways of providing customer services, enabling the use of digital payments through blockchain-based models has helped them to overcome the above-mentioned issues.
As the products of financial services are more commercialized, the service providers may need to divert their focus towards servicing a wide range of consumer needs. For example, instead of providing only a mortgage product to the home-buyer, financial institutions can contribute it to a larger digital platform, so that it can serve the end-to-end home buying experience of the buyers and portray a differentiated and cherished experience to them. It also helps to address the needs of the customers, in which the provision of a financial product is the only one component to be considered.
Partnering and sharing economic value among participants is considered as a critical component towards the long-term success of a digital platform ecosystem. Therefore it is important for the firms involved in the financial sector to realize that, the opportunity to provide financial services is not limited to the one that they have delivered, but also to the third parties, potentially the high-end competitors.
