Speaker Interview- Kerim Alain Bertrand

Q- As a leader within your company, would you like to highlight some recent challenges you have faced in the course of aligning innovation strategies to meet customer expectations?

As we are growing globally and expanding to new geographies, each new market has made us discover new potential partners to complement our capabilities and new competitors we had never heard of even after thorough market research. This is of course a good challenge to have, but it pushes us to continuously review our set of priorities in our product development roadmap, sometimes putting above our list features and capabilities which were not seen as priority previously. New markets mean new customers. New customers mean new expectations.

Q- Do you think the European Banking industry is leveraging omni channel marketing to the fullest level? Any thoughts on how this can be better leveraged, while bracing themselves up for future disruptions?

European Banking has rather embraced Multi-channel rather than Omni-channel as Automation and advanced segmentation is yet to be widely adopted to speak of a true Omni-channel experience. The most important obstacles to this transformation is the aging population in which only the younger customers are ready for increased digitalization and the second is the large investments in digital communication that have been made in the past which are now hard to decommission and many large conventional banks need to see through the lifespan of their investments before considering more sophisticated or advanced tools. The pandemic has in fact increased the need to further digitalize and educate the consumers as branches have lost their ability to effectively operate.

Q- We are aware that automation simplifies core banking operations. However, does cyberthreats hinder this in anyway?

Automation requires the combination and use of customer data sparsely distributed in various legacy systems, technologies. This could be hindered by cyberthreats unless the solution for complex event-triggered automation, such as the one we provide as SmartMessage, is placed behind the firewalls and within the highly secured environment of the bank.

Q-In implementing evolutionary innovation strategies, what are the 3 major points to pay attention to while ensuring they meet customer expectations?

1) Does this solution answer a critical and urgent need of the customers, will it make customers life easier?
2) Is it cost-effective? Would the benefits exceed the investment needed?
3) Does the company have the required resources and capabilities in order to implement the innovations in a timely manner to reap the rewards and maximise the ROI? When is the “go” too late?

Q-Being faced with disruption as a result of the pandemic, how can an organization constantly implement timely innovation strategies to meet customer expectations?

The pandemic accelerated the need for transformation. However, rather than thinking primarily on what the new expectations/needs are today, the innovating company must not forget to look also at the horizon and forecast ahead the changes in behaviour and needs. The purpose should definitely not be to save the day but to build a healthy future.

Q-How can risks be managed effectively within organisations using technologies to improve their overall business processes? How can the degree of any loss or harm be minimize?

Every new technology brings with it benefits and also risks. Companies need to carefully mitigate what the benefits are in the long term while what could be the risks in the short term. As an example, a bank investing significantly in mobile banking may be actually excluding a portion of the population not yet onboarded or not at the age to adopt mobile banking. What would the bank offer to that segment of customers? What would be the new role of branches? Various technologies need to coexist in order to help the transition and avoid discrimination among customers and therefore minimize risks.

Q-In dealing with customers, can you identify some challenges they face across the entire value chain of the financial processes?

Our customers are banks. We don’t deal directly with the end-customers. However, our solutions are there to help Banks engage more effectively their customers. What we find is that often, even when investing in advanced communication technologies, some banks miss the most important rule: KYC or Know Your Customer. Customers are getting more and more sophisticated. They see every day how ecommerce platforms do to track their behaviour, their purchasing habits, their gender etc. Everything banks do, every solution they implement, every new innovation they bring, they must first check whether it helps them to know better and therefore to service their customers better. Regardless of the investment size or the long list of technical capabilities they have acquired, Banks need to see whether they know their customers better.

Q-Your industry peers and banking professionals are certainly getting ready to attend Finnovex Europe, got any advice to share with them as they prepare?

To make the event even more successful, every banking professional should join the event with that main question in mind: “What can I do better or different, to better know my customers, and better service them?” and every industry peer should just listen, listen to what the banking professionals seek to accomplish. This should not be a platform where technical capabilities are not just listed but rather a platform where we answer how real problems of today and tomorrow can be solved with real technologies of today.