Digital & Data Transformation

The Society was undertaking an ambitious digital transformation programme that formed a core component of its long-term business strategy to attract new members.

Throughout human history, society has seen the intangible concept of money manifest into various mediums. It is therefore only reasonable that one asks – what does the future hold for financial services?

The rise of digital companies over the last two decades has forced traditional organisations to rethink their operating models to achieve the required levels of agility, customer experience, and flexibility.

The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation across all industries (even faster than the CIO agenda), forcing organisations to quickly move key processes to digital environments to retain some level of activity during the disruption.

The global macroeconomy is in a state of shock: supply chains are broken, global unemployment is on the rise and concerns about inflationary pressures are building up.

The Financial Stability Report, published by The Bank of England in July 2021,  presented the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) view that additional policy measures are required to mitigate financial stability risks for Financial Service companies using Cloud service providers.

Towards the end of a highly-complex four-year transformation programme (£MMMs), several external audit and assurance reviews identified the need for greater focus around transition management.

The client needed to consolidate their Data Centre (DC) estate, optimise their application portfolio and relocate to new facilities.

Over the past few months, we have all had to make changes to the way we live, work and interact with one another. The global health emergency has expedited a paradigm shift in individual behaviours and demand for digital services.

As organisations attempt to maintain a level of productivity as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, working from home is the new reality for many businesses.

The client a European multinational Investment Bank and Financial Services Company, started a large global IT transformation programme early in 2016 with the goal of transforming 4,000 Applications and 104K servers/databases by 2023 onto cloud platforms.

Like many financial services organisations, our client has seen strong growth in the demand for analytics functionality.

The client set out to reduce infrastructure and digital application run costs by identifying rationalisation efficiencies across previously disparate regions.

Our client was focused on a cost reduction strategy across its technology estate. Following on from our initial assessment, Storage was identified as a target area due to its ever-increasing cost profile.

Through the use of technology and innovative business models, FinTechs have triggered significant disruption in Financial Services. With such potential for disruption, it is always a good idea to scan ahead to see what may be around the corner.

Most IT Services managers generally believe they are doing a “good job”. That is until a long-term customer suddenly not wanting to do business with them any more and plans are underway to move to a new provider. At this point, it is perhaps too late to ask the customer whether there are any issues that need addressing or what requires improvement.

Exploring the dynamics of enterprise storage management in an infographic.

The Financial Services industry operates in an increasingly complex environment with relation to Information Lifecycle Governance. Organisations have historically been ineffective in managing the ever increasing volumes of data, driven in part by not applying effective records management procedures. 

Enterprise data volumes are growing exponentially. Legal and regulatory pressures have driven an approach that retaining data is a significantly more palatable solution than the risks associated with removing it. With storage always seen as relatively cheap, volumes have been allowed to grow. 

In the face of the never-ending deluge of bleeding-edge ‘solutions’ to address all business woes, how do you make sense of it all and more importantly, how do you determine the what, how and why?

AI is a general term which describes any technology that performs tasks which demonstrate characteristics of human intelligence. Machine learning is a subset of AI which can achieve ‘intelligence’ with the use of algorithms to ‘learn’ with data, without being explicitly programmed.

As we look forward, technology will be limited by the way in which you can secure it: think about the things like the emergence of nanosensors – “a doctor inside the body” that looks for specific patterns, events, conditions and then report via radio frequency to an external computer to help diagnose.

Our economy is digital and our most valuable assets are stored as a string of ones and zeros that can be accessed from anywhere. Our strategies, our secrets, our customers and our colleagues are, at this very moment, being threatened by not only well funded criminal syndicates but also by the vast resources of hostile nation states. 

In the infrastructure, world storage has for many years been treated as an exception when it comes to cost. Its share of the IT Budget has historically been relatively small, and it has always appeared too hard to get a grip on: storage is complicated, it is difficult to have direct impact, and there are always other priorities.

What is the true risk and opportunity for “Gone Aways” recovery?

Out of date client information carries a number of risks including potential fraud, failing to meet GDPR requirements or having sufficient information to demonstrate that the firm knows their client.

IoT? AI? RPA? DLT? XYZ? Ok, we made the last one up… but the point is that IT leaders need to constantly assess the benefits of new technology in the context of the businesses they serve. Cloud strategy is no different. Which is better – private, public, hybrid or none at all?

The journey to the Cloud is often cited as the Panacea to a wealth of issues; with increasing speed to market, significant cost optimisation and risk reduction being top of the list.

In this age of rampant digitisation, there is a heavy focus on the Customer Experience (CX): Omni-channel strategies; customer-centric design; Single Customer View; frictionless customer experiences – just some of the concepts we read and hear so much about.

Chasing the pack is not always the right decision to make, as reaching ‘optimal’ in all dimensions may not necessarily maximise return on investment or justify the level of internal disruption required to get to that point.

TORI were engaged by a leading UK wealth management group to support them with their transformation programme, divestment project and other initiatives.

The TORI team have combined their significant experience and expertise in Wealth Management, Insurance and emerging technologies to look at the current digital capability across these industries.

Peter Mann, TORI Chairman, spent 12 years with Old Mutual Wealth (OMW), comprising Skandia and OMW Investors. He held a number of positions in the business including CEO of Skandia UK and Vice-Chairman of OMW. Here are his thoughts if he was CEO again, today.

Lengthy trade processing times meant the organisation suffered major incidents on a regular basis.

Our client a leading UK Investment & retail Financial Services firm faced numerous challenges around vendor governance, policies and process alongside a wider remit to reduce overall spending on IT by 20-30%.

TORI was engaged to implement a new group IT Target Operating Model for a leading FTSE-100 insurance company. 

RAROC (Risk-Adjusted Return On Capital) is a 40- year-old concept. To its followers, its value is unquestioned. But the institutions that have fully implemented it remain an admired minority.

TORI provided project management for a data engineering project providing big data solutions to Group Functions and strategic programmes.

A Tier 1 global investment bank with clients in over 100 countries and assets of $2.3 trillion, wanted to identify a strategic partner to assist in the delivery of a standardised and highly virtualised technology platform and the operation of its core IT infrastructure services.

Currently, there are over 6 billion mobile subscriptions globally, (Sanou, 2011), and growing. Mobile technology is a booming business and will continue to excel.

A government organisation wanted to improve the consistency and objectivity of its customer care measurements.