The Law of Digital Gravity

The law of gravity impels water to flow to the lowest point.?Not just water, however, gravity pulls everything (including us) and is unforgiving.?Gravity is a good metaphor for modern digital, with technology ecosystems facilitating the flow of digital deeper and deeper into our daily lives. The law of gravity can be defied with resistance, a phenomenon we also see in digital - legacy technology pushes back on the flow of digital by impeding the ability of organizations to facilitate new and diverse experiences. While operating with resistance in the short term is certainly possible, the longer term will play out inevitably and digital experiences will continue to evolve, either with or without us.

Regardless of stature, or assets under administration, digital attrition will eventually affect financial institutions who lag in effective digital transformation and modernization. If words like ecosystem, platform, micro-services, API, multi-tenancy, cloud-native, and composable are not currently in your vernacular, they need to be -?a fundamental shift has occurred in digital, and as we have seen in other industries such as entertainment and media, retail, and transportation, financial services is evolving in then same manner. Additional technology trends are looming on the horizon as well, such as AI and quantum computing. In addition to embracing modern techniques, also important in this conversation is scale, or conferred scale. Being able to stand up a well articulated digital solution that delivers on its promise requires an appropriate construct for nurturing digital innovation, making it time to look beyond our current constraints and work with partners who can provision accordingly.

Optimal results require an optimal approach, and these changes will be driving innovative digital experiences, reductions in the cost to serve, and accelerated speed to market; the question has now become, “Which side of this do incumbent financial institutions want to be on?”?On one side you will have a playing field where value propositions can be digitally re-imagined, on the other side a dangerous precipice where competitive advantage will be eroded. The only certainty we have about the future is constant and unrelenting change, with now being the time to look this in the eye.

The last Blockbuster Retail location is located in Bend, Oregon where they have curated their previous value proposition, sell Blockbuster merchandise, and are also an Airbnb.?Interestingly enough, their website attributes their success to community and tourism - a different audience than previous.?While bank and credit union branches are not likely to go away anytime soon, the debate over how channels will evolve has.?Financial institutions are moving from being physical entities with a digital offering to digital entities with a physical offering - an inversion that will define the rest of this decade.

Digital transformation in financial services is not a collection of disparate technologies, but a complete journey.?So, at the end of 2022, we may be asking ourselves “So, where did the time go?”?This is not a question that we want to be asking the same time next year in 2023 - there is no path in digital without trail blazing.?The gravity of digital is penetrating, the moment for transformation and working within a transformational framework its now. carpe diem, Seize the Day.

Seasons Greetings and Best Wishes for the New Year!?See you in 2023!?This likely does not come as a surprise, but my New Year’s Resolution will be to continue coursing in ecosystem and platform and I look forward to the conversations!