2023 is going to be a challenging year for CFOs. Rising inflation (and interest rates), labor shortages and workplace transformations, continued supply chain complications, and increasingly complex and controversial external reporting requirements are all just a few of the major obstacles facing organizations in the new year. With so many issues at the doorstep and mixed indicators adding to the confusion, one could make the argument that 2023 will be even tougher than the recent years. Finance & Accounting leaders will undoubtedly need help, particularly from technology experts.

IT teams have been heavily transformed by the digital transformation age. Operations, finance & accounting, recruiting, marketing, external reporting, customer relationship management… all rely on innovative technological solutions to provide organizations with a competitive edge. IT leaders, specifically CIOs, must now be at the forefront of collaborative efforts across the organization to meet the challenges each function is facing. A strong(er) partnership between the offices of CFO and CIO will be critical to successfully navigating the difficult year(s) ahead. Below are specific considerations this partnership must explore to tackle the before-mentioned obstacles.

Increase Planning Capabilities to Strategically Combat Inflation and Rates Increases

Both inflation and interest rates are expected to experience increased volatility for the foreseeable future. Nothing can hamper growth like inflationary expenses and increasing debt obligations. Organizations absolutely need the ability to budget and forecast with agility and scalability to ensure the negative impacts are minimized. If the COVID era has taught us anything, it’s that efficiency and speed in strategic planning is a must in uncertain times. And it’s hard to believe (given the explosion and advancement of Planning software in recent times), but we still see improving budgeting and forecasting strategies listed as a top priority for CFOs according to a Gartner Survey of +150 CFOs.

Partnership between technology and finance leaders within the organization is critical to the process of improving Planning capabilities. CIOs can play a critical role in rising to this challenge by focusing efforts on using their expertise to pinpoint the best Planning solutions AND partners to garner improvements. Whether the organization is looking to implement a new solution or expand current applications, identifying specific areas for improvement takes teamwork from CFOs and CIOs. Below are a few areas that should be included in the discussions:

• Forecast modelling solutions to better analyze fast-changing business scenarios affects on long-range plans
• Optimization of operational planning processes by utilizing best-practice pre-built solutions
• Partnering with sales, product and supply chain managers to strengthen the overall budgeting and forecasting cycles
• Enhance the analysts’ ability and flexibility to manage profitability and cost models, as well as allocations
• Adoption/expansion of AI and data science within the planning process to empower analysts

Focus Technology Improvements on Key Tools to Recruit and Retain Talent

The talent shortage experienced over the past couple of years is re-balancing…. or getting worse, depending on what you’re reading. What this really means is that the dynamics affecting the labor market are not stable. And retaining or recruiting great talent will be a major goal for the foreseeable future. But the challenge for organizations is how do they differentiate themselves from competitors outside of pay and benefits? One answer lies in how job seekers envision their workplace experience and the work-life balance. Antiquated technology, unnecessarily complex (i.e. custom) and disjointed business processes, and over-reliance on manual intervention are all red flags to talented finance, accounting, and IT analysts. Organizations plagued by these issues will struggle to instill interest & confidence from both potential and existing associates as these all contribute to frustration and longer hours for analysts.

To eliminate the frustration and instill an engaging environment for colleagues, CFOs and CIOs should focus on addressing the following “talent busters”.

• Reduce manual-intensive repetitive processes within the quarter-end cycle, especially in the area of recurring journal entries and reconciliations
• Streamline data management integrations by focusing on solutions to speed the synchronization of both metadata and financial data
• Invest in formal training for key stakeholders. Consider developing a training roadmap for both business and IT analysts.
• Focus on technological solutions which provide modern collaboration features

Target External Reporting Enhancements

Scrutiny by external regulators and investors is increasing dynamically. New SEC rules, ESG, and the FTX fallout are bringing new pressures to organizations in with an influx of new reporting requirements. CFO offices are highly likely to struggle to keep up, which could (and most often does) lead to heavy reliance on manual efforts to meet new requirements. Additionally, one can only imaging the affect this expansion will inflict on audits fees. To combat this, CFOs and CIOs need to start identifying the key data elements, key people, and the key solutions to help meet the future of external reporting. Solutions needs to center the following considerations.

• Invest in an external assessment of the processes and tools being used to produce external reports
• Control the narrative with solutions that provide cutting edge narrative functionality
• Mitigate reporting and audit costs by primarily focusing on solutions which center on configuration to produce standardized external reporting, rather than custom coding or Excel
• Use sophisticated workflow and task management solutions to ensure all information is captured, prepared, and reviewed in a timely fashion

Conclusion

CFOs and CIOs face an uphill climb in 2023. Even the best managed and technology-focused organizations will be impacted. Leaders who embrace the suggestions above will see their organization in a much better position at the end of 2023, than those who don’t.

Have thoughts in addition to above? Feel free to comment!

Who do you consult when Outlook isn’t working? What about when issues arise with your messaging platforms? Or, worse yet – when your customer experience platforms aren’t working properly?

You likely answered “IT” when thinking about these situations.

For years, businesses have charged IT with providing stability, consistency, and reliability. However, keeping the lights on in today’s customer-centered world isn’t enough. Of all departments, IT is in a unique position to bring customer centricity to your organization.

Not convinced? Consider that 86 percent of consumers will pay more for a great customer experience (CX). This is why CX is expected to overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020.

What is customer centricity?

Customer centricity firmly puts the customer’s wants and needs at the core of a business strategy. This razor-sharp focus on the customer lays the foundation for delivering valuable, relevant experiences across every touch point.

Technology is critical to the delivery of these experiences, so your role as CIO is key to providing the tools that drive customer-centered experiences. Therefore, you and your teams should embrace and promote this customer-first mindset.

How can you cultivate customer centricity?

“Enterprises with customer-obsessed CIOs and IT departments perform the best,” according to a Forrester analyst. To create a customer-centered business, you must:

• Break down silos to work with the business
• Create a lean environment for innovation
• Set a digital strategy across the company
• Turn customer information into experiences customers want
• Bring new technologies to the business

The key takeaway: Consumers perceive CX as the brand experience, so businesses must become customer centered to deliver that experience.

Gain more insight and guidance on these topics in The CIO’s Guide to Cultivating a Customer-Centered Business. Or, you can download the guide using the form below.

As a former CIO, I believe the most important aspect of an IT organization’s job is to protect their IT infrastructure and data that resides within it through advanced security. While it is obviously important to implement new technologies and applications, if the environment is not safe then nothing else matters.

Part of this responsibility is disaster and business continuity planning, which protects data and ensures ongoing business activity in the event of a disruption event. The primary focus, however, is making sure the environment is protected against external threats and ensuring there isn’t any unplanned exposure of data within the environment.

Over the course of my career, security priorities have changed from technical solutions, like virus management and network security, to a more comprehensive review of all aspects of security required by regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes Oxley.

This was easier in many ways when you controlled all aspects of your IT infrastructure. Now, however, cloud computing (or in other words turning over a significant part of your IT infrastructure to a third party) is becoming a key part of overall IT service delivery for many companies. In past blogs I have documented the benefits of cloud-based service delivery and I believe it should be a key part of any organization’s overall IT strategy.

However, it is critical you address ensure security considerations as you migrate to a cloud-based delivery model.

So how do you accomplish this? The good news is that the major cloud providers are as concerned, or even more so, on security as you are. Their entire business model is dependent on having a secure computing environment and they focus a significant amount of staff time and financial commitment to this area.

Their focus on security is often more comprehensive, and they have access to greater technical capability, than their clients so from that perspective moving data to the cloud may actually be putting it in a more secure environment that you could manage yourself.

However, there are still things that are critical as you migrate to the cloud in order to minimize security risk and mitigate any issues that may occur.

These include the following:

• Due diligence on the providers environment, including reviewing their certifications
• Contractual terms in the hosting agreement
• Protecting the transit of data to and from the service provider
• Ongoing security reporting and audits
• Regular meetings to review any areas of concern as well as planning for upcoming activities

If you take the proper steps to select a cloud provider, ensure the agreement has terms to protect you, protect the connection to the service provider is secure and actively monitor the provider’s activity there is no reason to worry about migrating data to the cloud. In my next blog I’ll review over each of the areas above in more detail.

Digital innovation continues to disrupt industries at lightning speed. Today’s organizations are transforming their entire business – from strategy to operations, technology to culture – to better deliver value to their customers. In 2017, we compiled the top 10 trends leaders needed to know when it came to their digital transformation journey. In this 10-week blog series, we’ll further explore each trend and address how you can continue to modernize your business for success. 

Come along with me on a journey back in time: a time when the internet was shiny and new.

It’s 1998 and you just fired up your brand new tangerine iMac when your friend sends you a message on AIM asking if you’ve heard about this new DVD service called Netflix.

You have not.

So you head over to a brand new search website called Google, and you type “What is Netflix?” You click on the first result and are sent to Netflix.com where you see this:

This is a completely different experience for you because a typical Friday night involves stopping at your local Blockbuster, heading straight for the back wall, and looking for hot titles like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “G.I. Jane.” Proud of your status as an early adopter, you walk right past everyone looking at the VHS movies and head straight to the wall of DVDs where you see this:

But that was 20 years ago. Ancient history. Let’s fast forward 10 years to compare how the two brands evolved.

It’s now 2008. You just fired up your brand new ultra-thin MacBook Air notebook when your best friend texts you on your iPhone 3G, asking if you feel like watching a movie this weekend. You have already watched all three of your Netflix DVDs, and you’ve put them back in their self-sealing envelopes to ship back. You log on to Netflix.com to learn that they now have unlimited streaming. Their website has changed quite a bit in ten years:

Unlimited movie rentals? That sounds amazing! You decide to sign up later, but for tonight, you need a movie, so you head over to Blockbuster, which still looks like this:

Fast forward to today. Your friend texts you on your smartwatch and asks if you want to watch a movie tonight. You fire up your Roku to see what is streaming and decide to figure it out once she gets there, certain that you will find something binge-worthy:

She arrives with take-out from your favorite Chinese restaurant. Coincidentally, the one located right next door to where Blockbuster used to be.

Which Path Will You Take?

If Socrates had spoken at a Harvard 2017 commencement, his advice would still ring true:

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

Digital transformation isn’t optional anymore. The customer is in the driver’s seat. You either grow along with your customers, or you end up becoming the anchor store in an abandoned strip mall.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Your customers expect an exceptional experience. If your website, your customer service agents or your supply chain don’t move fast enough, then they will find someone who moves faster.

One week to ship my product? Too long.

One minute to load a website? On to the next.

Five minutes to hold for a customer service representative? Nope.

To your customers, time is the new money. Your job is to find ways to manufacture time. This is done by making experiences faster, smoother and easier.

The Good

It can be done.

The Bad

It’s going to cost money.

The Ugly

It will probably take longer than you anticipate.

Where’s the Money?

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

According to The Hackett Group’s Key Issues Study, finance leaders of global companies with more than $1 billion in revenue said they expected finance department budgets to be cut 1.3% in 2018. That’s not good news, but it does get a little bit better. Unlike in 2016 and 2017, cutting finance budgets is not one of the top two objectives for the company.

The number one objective is “supporting enterprise information/analytics needs” closely followed by “supporting enterprise digital transformation.”

While the budget may be smaller, the available budget is more likely to be funneled into digital transformation efforts.

According to a Forbes report, 85 percent of business executives will allocate up to 25 percent of their total budget to digital transformation. 2018 will reveal record amounts spent on digital.

The 3 Step Plan to Avoid Becoming Blockbuster

Step 1

Communicate. Digital transformation starts in a very human place. It starts with the relationship between the CIO, CEO, and CFO. While the CFO holds the purse strings, the CEO drives the vision. Without buy-in from the top, your digital transformation initiatives will struggle to gain traction.

“Regardless of their experience—or their personal interest in digital transformation—it’s agreed that CEOs need to get onboard with not just allowing, but in leading, the change.” – Daniel Newman, Futurum

Customer expectations in 2018 are not what they were 2015, 2016, or 2017. What was optional then is critical now. Visitors may have tolerated your non-mobile website last year. This year, not so much.

 Look Beyond the Quarterly Earnings

Long-term benefits rarely coincide with quarterly goals. Digital transformation takes many months to several years. You will spend the money now and see the return in a year…or two.

That’s not an easy sell.

But consider the alternative of doing nothing.

Step 2

Find a great partner. Knowing what you want to do and actually being able to do it, are two very different things. It’s relatively easy to determine that your user experience needs improvement. Simply take a look at your website’s bounce rate or the negative reviews on Yelp.

Fixing it? That’s much harder.

Step 3

Be patient. Once you decide to jump in, it could take years to see a return on your investment. According to Forbes , only 11 percent see returns within a year, while more than a third wait at least two years for a full return on that investment.

Convincing your CFO to make an investment that may take years to recoup is a difficult sell, but it’s not impossible.  Consider the following two scenarios:

Choose not to invest in digital transformation:

Ashley goes to your website to purchase an item she needs this weekend. It loads very slowly, but she’s patient. She finds what she is looking for and adds it to her cart. When she goes to pay, she gets an error message.

Ashley is annoyed and buys her product somewhere else.

This bad experience prevents her from buying from you now and in the future. She is so frustrated that she writes a negative review on Google.

She tells two friends, and then they tell two friends. The damage is done.

Result: Ignoring digital transformation positively impacts your expenses today. And yet, in the long run, it can negatively impact your future income.

Choose to invest in digital transformation:

Ryan goes to your website to purchase an item he needs this weekend. He pulls it up quickly on his phone, adds it to his cart, swipes to pay, and is done within 3 minutes.

He’s so happy that he vows to always buy from you, regardless of price, because it was easy and fun to buy. He then writes a positive review on Google.

He tells two friends, and then they tell two friends. Business is booming.

Result: Investing in digital transformation may increase your expenses today. And yet, it can positively impact your income in the future.

Back to the Future

“Next year” has arrived. What started as a want is now a need.

It’s never easy to find the money, but when the lack of investment causes potential customers to leave and never come back, it can no longer be ignored.

Ready Player One

Your customer’s expectations are evolving at breathtaking speeds. Investing in technology is no longer about reducing costs and increasing efficiency. The investment today is all about the customer experience.

“While investment strategies for digital transformation have traditionally been influenced by an organization’s desire to improve operational performance and reduce costs, respondents have shown that future investment strategies will shift to more strategic opportunities – chief among these being improving the customer experience,” said Srikant Sastry, national managing principal of advisory services at Grant Thornton, in a statement. “The simple truth is that more than three-quarters of the executives surveyed feel that digital transformation is critical for their company.” – Accounting Today 

Your CFO will be more likely to invest in areas where she can either see measurable, proven, success or where you can demonstrate that your lack of innovation is causing a loss.

Digital transformation doesn’t need to be an all or nothing proposition. You can take one small step at a time:

1. Identify customer pain points
2. Translate those pain points into dollars lost. (abandoned carts, decrease in website visits)
3. Determine a way to fix just one, small pain point
4. Invest a small budget
5. Measure. Measure. Measure.

We all want to hang onto our money, and your CFO is no different. She will invest where she’s sure she will see results.

Which Path Will Your Brand Choose?

No one knows what Netflix will look like in 2028, but one thing is certain – it will evolve and look nothing like it does today.

What about your business? Will you be the next Blockbuster, or adapt and evolve like Netflix?

Do you want to read more about the top ten digital transformation trends?

Click here to read about trend six: Brewing an Addictive Mobile Experience

The industry continues to flex its muscle when it comes to innovation through the use of digital technology. While life sciences companies over the years have tended to be laggards in this respect as compared to other industries, they’ve really come to understand the importance of using digital technology. It’s a necessity. It’s an integral part of their programs. Companies realize the new ways their patients are communicating and the high expectations they maintain because of the digital era in which they live. They also understand how, through the use of digital and mobile devices, healthcare outcomes can dramatically improve.

Whenever a large company appoints a new chief, it’s an important headline that may highlight the company’s ambitions, strategic direction, and intentions. So, when a top pharmaceutical company hires a new chief of digital, it’s difficult to overlook the critical role digital plays in life sciences.

That’s exactly what happened at GlaxoSmithKline in 2017. The company appointed Karenann Terrell, who previously served as the CIO of Walmart. When you bring an executive from the world’s largest (by revenue) company, which happens to focus on selling directly to consumers, good things should happen.

Novartis is another example of a large pharmaceutical company that is increasing its focus on digital. It recently hired Bertrand Bodson as the company’s chief digital officer. Mr. Bodson was the chief digital and marketing officer for Argos, the third-largest online retailer in the UK.

While bringing a leader from outside the industry can often shape a company’s appetite for digital, life sciences organizations have already proven their aptitude for innovation and technology. Innovative mobile apps and digital devices meant to educate, increase adherence, and provide clinical, safety and healthcare professionals with more (and better) data are being developed at an increasing rate.

Hemocraft, a game based on Minecraft and developed by Pfizer in partnership with Drexel University and the hemophilia community, aims to help young people with hemophilia understand the need for integrating treatment into their routines. Users of the game learn what treatment entails and how to stick to a treatment plan.

The HemMobile Striiv Wearable, a wearable device for patients with hemophilia, was created this year to track activity levels and monitor heart rate. The bracelet feeds data into a complementary app, which can give healthcare professionals better insight into patients’ conditions.

While paper has been the primary means of data collection for over a decade, the creation of new apps enables patients to report symptoms in real time. This digital and remote way of collecting data can save patients and healthcare providers a significant amount of time and increase the accuracy of data. With today’s devices, one doesn’t have to remember how he or she was feeling at a particular point in time.

Kenneth M. Farber, co-CEO and co-president of the Lupus Research Alliance, highlighted an app the organization created, alongside Pfizer, for lupus patients.

“This is an important step in demonstrating that mobile technology can improve how and what patients report to their care teams about subjective but serious symptoms of lupus, such as debilitating fatigue,” he said. “This app may enable more frequent and consistent reporting from patients, thus providing better information for care teams and empowering patients to take a larger role in developing future therapies.”

With each passing day, companies are developing better ways to monitor health conditions. Where in the past, patients would need to be in a doctor’s office or hospital with large equipment at their side, mobile has now enabled taking monitoring on the go.

Abbott’s Confirm Rx Insertable Cardiac Monitor (ICM) is a great example. It’s the world’s first smartphone-compatible ICM that automatically gathers vital cardiac information and delivers the data to physicians via the myMerlin mobile app, providing the ability to monitor heart rhythms remotely.

Sanofi’s My Dose Coach is another wonderful example of a how a mobile app can improve patient safety and medication adherence. The app, created for adult type 2 diabetes patients on once-daily, long-acting basal insulin, can calculate the patient’s recommended basal insulin dose according to the dose plan his or her doctor has created. The patient simply enters his or her fasting blood glucose and gets a recommended basal insulin dose.

To learn about other trends that we can also expect to see in 2018, click here.

Digital Transformation captures the mindshare of modern CIOs and for good reason. As consumers demand more out of their business experiences, organizations must catch up or face irrelevancy. However, while much of the consensus around Digital Transformation remains on the surface, the real pressures concern the oncoming IT trends for 2018.

Forrester is one of the research firms foreshadowing the future, describing 2018 as a “year of reckoning” for CIOs, especially those still licking their wounds from the last recession. With an estimated 75% of organizations expected to miss their objectives, led by external and internal forces, there should be palpable worry in the market.

Forrester highlights some of the relevant trends driving this worry:

• Artificial Intelligence is Coming Fast: Forrester believes that 2018 will be the end of the AI honeymoon and surveys show 70% adoption over that time. Much of the emphasis on AI will lie in decision-making technology. For organizations still indecisive about the future of AI, now may be the time to explore business use cases or risk playing painful catch up down the road.
• Blockchain’s Potential: 2017 has seen a mixed bag on blockchain and cryptocurrency, with equal parts disdain and hope from various thought leaders. In the meantime, Bitcoin continues to surge in value on the pressure of public interest, which will force organizations to take a side. Forrester expects the banking industry to derive $1 billion of business value from blockchain by 2020, though there is much left to be desired in the skills gap. Like AI, Blockchain is an area that organizations should plan to invest in going forward.
• IoT Takes Us to the Edge: Already known is the move to Edge Computing with the prominence of IoT. More pressing however is the question of how, which Forrester believes will be 95% of technologies by 2022. Furthermore, IoT investment will also center on security, which continues to worry CIOs. With many companies continuing to avoid commitment to IoT security, the industry is in for a rude and expensive awakening.

As 2018 approaches, we believe that these trends are only the tip of the iceberg and represent a greater industry-wide shift that will influence the market. Read the report here and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Gartner recently put out a press release that is quite memorable. It begins with: “By 2020, a corporate ‘no-cloud’ policy will be as rare as a ‘no-internet’ policy is today.”

The chances are low that many companies maintain such success-hindering policies, but there are plenty of companies out there that are slow adopters, especially in heavily regulated industries.

Gartner supports the belief that companies will continue deploying software in a mixed fashion, but will increasingly choose the cloud as the first option. A hybrid use of the cloud, which leverages the public cloud, private cloud, and/or dedicated servers, will be most common in the coming years.

The research and advisory company also made a few other bold predictions about the cloud:

• By 2019, more than 30% of the 100 largest vendors’ new software investments will have shifted from cloud-first to cloud-only.
• By 2020, more compute power will have been sold by Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud providers than that sold and deployed into enterprise data centers.

As financial institutions continue their efforts to become more efficient at a time when regulatory demands and low interest rates dominate the news cycle, the cloud remains an area that provides real hope.

Headlines, such as “J.P. Morgan Creates Executive Role to Lead Cloud Services,” stress what’s important to a financial services company and reinforce that the focus area is real. JPMorgan’s hiring of Harish Grama as the chief information officer for cloud services testifies to this.

According to JPMorgan’s chief information officer, Dana Deasy, “the successful adoption of cloud technology is essential.” The company’s “evolving hybrid cloud model will help its technologists grow innovation, standardization and productivity in a secure and stable environment, plus have more efficiencies through shared platforms.”

JPMorgan is no stranger to the cloud. It currently benefits from the use of an internal private cloud; however, an ongoing initiative is considering leveraging a public cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google. Moving forward, the bank has said it’s even interested in developing its own original applications in the cloud.

Expect to see cloud become even more ubiquitous in 2017.

To read about the 14 other trends that we believe will take place in the financial services industry in 2017, click here or simply fill out the form below to download our newest guide.

This week I am back at home in Northern California celebrating Thanksgiving with my family. Our Thanksgiving dinner is unique, with a blend of American dishes like turkey and cranberry sauce mixed with Chinese noodles and dumplings. In all, there is something for everyone at the table and one can go home satisfied with what they’ve eaten.

Each year there are many things to give thanks for in the technology world. From mobile applications that facilitate efficient shopping experiences to games that pass the time, families can have more engaging, interesting, and successful holiday seasons.

Especially thankful these few years are technology executives and leaders, particularly those who have chosen to adopt cloud technologies for their organization. Here’s what we believe each technology leader is giving thanks for as they sit down to a hearty meal this Thursday:

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is thankful for cloud because it has helped the organization adopt leaner ways of development while also enabling the gathering of more customer information. The CIO is thankful that the cloud no longer means having to research new innovations every few years as well – this process now takes care of itself.

The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) is thankful to have a seat at the table after years of being separated from the conversation. With digital experiences being developed in the cloud, the CMO is confident their skills, interests, and strategies can benefit the end customer in more ways than ever.

The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and their accounting team are thankful for the cost-savings of the cloud. In the past, the CIO would purchase more technologies than necessary, often to guard against the potential lack of resources. With a solid public cloud strategy now, the company can save more money earned through revenues and be better prepared for rainy days or the opportunity to innovate.

The Lead Technical Architect and their team of developers are thankful for a more efficient development process. In the past, development meant having to manually check the quality of applications, raising the possibility of human error. Now armed with DevOps technologies that empower continuous deployment and innovation, the technology team can rest easy knowing that launch days won’t be chaotic.

The product manager and marketing managers are thrilled with the arrival of the cloud. With the competition fiercer than ever, knowing that the development team can deploy features and innovations is an exciting prospect, especially as the holiday and winter conference season heats up. This year, the elusive breakout session speaking opportunity a possibility.

Perhaps the most excited this Thanksgiving is the customer. Having discovered the application through the recommendation of a friend, the customer can depend on their favorite brand to come through with the latest updates, innovations, and so much more, keeping their eyes glued to the screen. One can only imagine that this customer will be a loyal one for years to come.

What are You Thankful For?

Learn more about our IBM expertise here.

As you bite into your turkey or apple pie, what are you thankful for in the cloud this holiday season? Share your thoughts in the comments below and download our guide, Getting Started with Hybrid Cloud to see what your technical teams can achieve through cloud adoption.

I love headlines like this: J.P. Morgan Creates Executive Role to Lead Cloud Services. It helps me understand what’s important to a company and tells me that a company’s focus area is real.

As financial services companies continue their efforts to become more efficient in a time in which regulatory demands and low interest rates dominate the news cycle, the cloud remains an area that provides real hope. JPM’s hire of Harish Grama as the chief information officer for cloud services confirms this.

According to JPM’s Chief Information Officer Dana Deasy, “the successful adoption of cloud technology is essential.” The company’s “evolving hybrid cloud model will help its technologists grow innovation, standardization and productivity in a secure and stable environment, plus have more efficiencies through shared platforms,” he said.

JPM is no stranger to the cloud. It currently benefits from the use of an internal private cloud; however, an ongoing initiative is considering leveraging a public cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google. Moving forward, the bank has also said it’s even interested in developing its own original applications in the cloud.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Michael Porter, a colleague of mine, was live-blogging at last week’s Forrester CXNYC event, a conference for customer experience leaders, innovators, and practitioners.

During one of the presentations he attended, George F. Colony, the CEO of Forrester, discussed how customer experience has become the most critical barrier to gaining and keeping customers. While he shared a handful of stories from a mix of industries, George mentioned an example from banking that I wanted to pass along.

Nine months ago, George visited the CMO of a very large bank to provide her with her company’s new Forrester CX Index score. Upon review, she remarked that her next biggest competitor, who spent one-fifth the amount as she did on customer experience, had a better score. George explained that it was likely because the way the two companies approached their customers was vastly different. The CMO asked for evidence and George obliged. After reviewing letters from the CEO to shareholders, he found their competitor used the word “customers” much more often. He extrapolated that this was probably indicative of the company culture, and that there was a lesson in it – for all of us.

In a recent post, I took an in-depth look at the first of three critical themes for success in the digital age, as identified by McKinsey & Company through interviews with 20 pharma executives: 

1. Dramatic changes in the traditional roles and dynamics of healthcare stakeholders have fundamental implications for pharma companies.

In today’s post, I’d like to take a closer look at the second theme:

2. It is time to reimagine them as solutions companies, not asset companies.

Traditionally, the pharma value proposition has been focused on assets: products and pills. But, the digital revolution has led consumers to expect solutions, so pharma is now being challenged to integrate “digital” with its assets to convert them into solutions to real-life problems faced by their customers.

A fascinating example described in the article is a partnership involving Google, DexCom, Novartis, and Sanofi, focused on combating diabetes:

“Among the approaches is uploading glucose and insulin levels to the cloud in real time through contact lenses (worn by the patient) that measure glucose levels in tears; a bandage-sized sensor sends the data to the cloud. This technology can greatly improve the quality of diabetic care and help prevent complications through the real-time detection of any aberrations in glucose and insulin levels, which would trigger the right type of medical attention.”

In addition to partnering with technology companies, pharma needs to provide solutions that cross therapy types and even manufacturers. There’s that theme again: pharma needs to play well with others. We’ve seen this kind of collaboration in limited capacities, such as for AIDS and cancer research, but the demand for effective health solutions – no matter who discovered what or who owns which patent – is steadily growing. And, in order to stay competitive, pharma needs to significantly shift its operating paradigm to meet this demand.

For ideas on how to make the switch from asset-focused to solution-focused, contact us.

IT system consolidations seems to be an ongoing trend in the financial services industry. In March, I shared J.P. Morgan’s plan to shrink the number of IT applications it uses by an overall 25%. Today, the story is about Deutsche Bank, Germany’s leading bank, who has a strong position in Europe and a significant presence in the Americas and Asia Pacific. A recent Financial Times article highlights the company’s initiative to streamline its IT infrastructure in an effort to reduce costs and simplify operations.

“In line with the bank’s goals of becoming simpler and more efficient, global markets operations is restructuring to reduce costs, strengthen controls and eliminate inefficient manual processes through greater automation,” Deutsche Bank said in an emailed statement.

Having amassed over 4,400 applications in total, the company has eliminated 500 of them thus far, in addition to shedding 450 positions from its global markets unit, which were historically required for the reconciliation of data between systems. John Cryan, Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank, indicated last year that the company has plans to reduce its workforce by a total of 9,000 employees and 6,000 contractors.

Improving IT operations is a top priority for Deutsche Bank, along with many other financial institutions. Inefficiency comes at a high cost, whether it’s in the form of extra personnel, capital expenditures, or regulatory fines. To streamline their operations and ensure compliance, firms need to continue to optimize business processes and systems through consolidation, integration, and the deployment of applications in the cloud.

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