Transforming Your Business? How Process, People, and Technology Will Guide Your Path

Laura Merling, Chief Transformation and Operations Officer at Arvest Bank

Laura Merling, Chief Transformation and Operations Officer at Arvest Bank

The acceleration of technology and shifting customer expectations are driving transformation across many industries, particularly banking. These transformations are beneficial for many reasons, including uncovering new revenue streams, creating better customer experiences and finding efficiencies across your entire organization.

It is not unusual for businesses to equate transformation with advancement in technology. Technology is an enabler of transformation and the speed of technology advancement and adoption is exponential. However, financial institutions must prioritize the transformation of people and processes alongside technology to position themselves to overcome the challenges in culture and mindset that come with the digital transformation process.

For the last 25 years, I have helped companies of every size — from Fortune 500 titans to high-energy startups — realize the benefits of digital transformation. In that time, I have found that there are three components essential to a successful transformation:

1. People Are the Key to Your Success

Change is hard. Transformation is noisy and disruptive. Typically, the technology team is the first group to feel the disruption. New technology requires new skills. Communicating to them their role in the transformation and their opportunity to acquire those new skills is the first hurdle. Not everyone will want to come along for the ride, and that is ok. While the technology team is first to feel the impact, communicating early and often about the transformation across the entire company is critical.

Transparency is important - highlighting progress and calling out team wins and setbacks (they will happen). Most employees will watch to see what is happening but won't really pay full attention until the change impacts them. Establishing a change management team, engaging employees as ambassadors and CEO updates reinforces that everyone has ownership of the transformation.

“Financial institutions must embrace the technology that can keep pace and empower leaders not only to meet changing customer expectations but also the ever-shifting regulatory environment.”

Large-scale changes make people nervous about their place in the future organization, and we never want to describe someone as being part of the ‘legacy’ organization. Including everyone through thoughtful language is as important as the communication itself.

2. New Technology Equals New Processes

Identify your customer pain points. At Arvest, we refer to these as ‘rocks in the shoe.’ Where there is customer pain, there is typically inefficiency in processes.

Begin by looking at your customer pain points and creating new processes from the outside in. It is easy to fall into the trap of solving the problem or process from the company's point of view and what you need to do to help the customer. Some processes may require time to address, but identifying small, quick wins can bring immediate value to customers and employees while your team builds long-term solutions.

Thoroughly understanding our pathway to transformation also allowed us to find efficiencies along the way. For example, we identified a customer access problem that stemmed directly from challenges with account management. We streamlined the service from top to bottom and decreased our contact center calls by around 1,000 per day.

Taking these deliberate steps will help you fuse your transformation together with your business goals.

3. Keep Pace with Changing technology

Technology is the foundation of your transformation and is one of your biggest ongoing challenges. Industry innovations and customer expectations change daily, and adopting the latest tech requires an agile delivery approach that many leaders struggle to fully embrace.

We are modernizing our bank’s infrastructure by partnering with leading providers and moving our operations to the cloud, giving us the ability to meet those ever-shifting demands.

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, cloud computing, and blockchain are the focus of technology transformations, but the industry is moving quickly. In a few years, digital spaces, biometrics, and generative AI will likely take major leaps, and banks will have to be agile enough to respond.

Technology innovation is accelerating faster than ever and there are no signs of slowing. Financial institutions must embrace the technology that can keep pace and empower leaders not only to meet changing customer expectations but also the ever-shifting regulatory environment.

Fully embracing a future of new technology will help put any company in a position to be successful in the long term. Successful transformation depends on ensuring that your processes, people, and technology align with the right goals.

Company leaders can help create the perfect conditions for ongoing change through careful planning, transparent communications, and embracing change.

Financial

Agile

Cloud Computing

Contact Center

Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning

Blockchain

Startups

Change Management