The Role of CIO in FinTech

In a world where technology is now the undisputed protagonist of our daily lives, the second generation of "digital natives" is already seeing the light and new digital Customer Experiences on portable devices constitute the basic prerequisite for every service user. In the same way, the large institutions of the financial world are called to face the technological, professional and social challenges that derive from this context and in which the role of the CIO (Chief Information Officer) proves essential.

To respond to the new?market needs, the?CIO, or?Chief Information Officer, must also add?leadership skills to the?technical skills: only in this way will it be possible capable of responding to the challenges of increasingly globalized and continually evolving scenarios. The?CIO of the future?is a manager capable of promoting not only the?digitalization, but the?culture?technological, managing complex situations and enhancing the?human capital. In an increasingly unpredictable, complex and global market, the figure of the CIO is changing radically. The?CIO is increasingly asked to be?strategic?in finding agile and innovative solutions with a significant impact even in the short term, to increase the company's profitability. Therefore, only technical and hard skills are no longer enough, which obviously remain fundamental, but skills of?lateral thinking are needed, leadership,?coaching,?intelligence?emotional?and?multitasking skills.

Who is the CIO?

Nowadays being a CIO means being a well-rounded manager, who simultaneously acts as an orchestrator of internal and external ecosystems, in close collaboration with business functions.

Must be a strategist and educator to effectively and directly spread the correct perception within the company. The role of technology as a key factor for innovation. He/She must be able to manage an increasingly extensive network of stakeholders that goes beyond company boundaries and involves customers, third parties, competitors and regulators, but above all to skilfully and transparently communicate the opportunities and risks arising to the other members of the C-Suite by the technology itself.

3 Pillars of CIO

From my point of view, there are essentially three strategic drivers of the CIO activity of tomorrow, to bring to fruition the opportunities for digital transformation and innovation of companies in the current context.

Technology

Firstly, IT is destined to broaden its range of action within the corporate Value Chain, absorbing all operations; the aim is to amplify the customer focus of the commercial divisions and transform the machine operating in a ?figurative business?. This phenomenon is identified as "IT grabbing principle" and is an example of the ability of technology to become increasingly pervasive within the entire Value Chain, testifying to a now consolidated trend according to which IT is a business by itself.

Traditionally the role of the CIO and technology has been to enable the business to carry out activities with greater added value for the customer; just think of the introduction of marketing strategy and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools , the evolution of managerial reporting through the introduction of business intelligence logic and the speeding up of on-field activities thanks to the adoption of Salesforce automation solutions. These innovations have pursued the objectives of ever-increasing commercial effectiveness, greater Customer Satisfaction and an acceleration of time to market.

These are the same objectives pursued by new technologies applied to the business world, such as Data & Analytics and Prospecting, Extended Reality, Internet of Behavior, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, which are increasingly relevant in the primary processes of the value chain and find application in fundamentals such as strategic marketing, entering into commercial relationships, financial consultancy and the automation of commercial support activities

On the other hand, there are governance and business support processes, an increasingly playing field for technological innovations which, thanks to the enhanced performance of computational capacity and decision-making accuracy, are radically transforming the modus operandi of business operations. Solutions Cloud for storage and computing services, process monitoring logics based on process data mining, advanced natural language programming tools to impart operational instructions, biometric detection and authentication systems for verifying personal identity, chatbot avatars as interlocutors for daily activities: these are just a few examples of how technologies have taken root with an exponential acceleration in business support processes, digitizing client onboarding, the execution of checks for anti-money laundering (AML) purposes, credit evaluation and granting activities , the execution of payments and transactions and the provision of the assistance and dispute management service.

This means corporate support and governance functions increasingly focused on their corporate mission and on the exercise of their professional skills, as they are freed from administrative and operational tasks, thanks to the efficiency gains brought by technological innovation, which inevitably comes closer to the needs and requirements of the customer and acts like a "figurative business", demonstrating how IT directly or indirectly orients the entire company towards commercial momentum.

People

The second strategic driver concerns the renewed role of human resources as a driver of transformation. The organizations of the future will no longer be simply "technology-enabled" but will transform into "tech-first companies", capable of orchestrating the entire company operations with a view to co-leadership between IT and business. To achieve this ambitious objective it is necessary to pursue the path of an overall renewal of skills, modus operandi, organizational models and ways of understanding, establishing and living the relationship between man and machine, in which digital innovation plays the role of amplifier of the potential of individuals and does not represent the means of replacing them.

Think of the importance of accessing or internally developing the digital capabilities that technological acceleration has made necessary but scarcely available: professional figures such as full-stack architect (able to disintermediate implementation technicalities from user needs), Cloud strategist ( who can guide the company in adopting the "cloud" in line with strategic choices) and data scientists (able to transform every transaction and information input into opportunities for efficiency or effectiveness), are just some examples of how digital skills represent the keystone to design, maintain, collaborate with emerging technologies and enhance their reach thanks to the combination with the individual human traits of creativity, judgment, empathy and imagination.

Alongside skills, it is essential to also evolve the ways in which these are developed and disseminated within organisations. In this regard, many organizations have already activated new career and professional development paths, aimed at the growth of resources in the main areas of technological, business and organizational transformation, as well as having activated new approaches and forms of learning that aim to encourage collaboration between millennials and people with more work experience.

Furthermore, the impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the ways of conceiving the mix of times, places and work tools, towards a model not linked to a specific physical place in which collaborators, customers, suppliers and in In general, entire ecosystems act and interact digitally (with all due respect to companies that write "no smart-working" in their announcements of open positions).

Unified Platform

Finally, the third and final driver that influences the role of the CIO in the future concerns the new architectural paradigm from a platform-based perspective, aimed at supporting the organization for strongly business-oriented services. This increasingly consolidated orientation within large organizations but rapidly evolving even in smaller entities, it provides for a multi-level structuring of the IT architecture, according to which certain "technology stacks" are identified and strategic objectives are pursued that are very precise and consistent with the company vision .

Generally, the design of these platforms revolves around 3 key components: digital services, the data lake and core banking.

• The first layer of digital services is the one that aims at Customer Satisfaction, the enrichment of the offer and the reduction of time to market and does so through the "open" approach offered by new technologies and solutions, favoring the integration with other offering ecosystems.
• The last level is represented by the core banking systems and in general by the essential infrastructure services that support and guarantee the functioning of the entire IT structure. The aim is represented by the search for efficiency and optimization of resources through modernization and decommissioning strategies of obsolete applications, choices of distribution of resources and computational capabilities towards cloud architectures, although we are also witnessing trends that aim at the monetization of these technological stacks in "service provider" perspective towards new entrants into the business or companies from other sectors.
• The data lake is located between the two layers, a hub of flexibility that makes data the decoupling element between the objectives of effectiveness and efficiency. If on the one hand the new data mining technologies allow a renewed capacity for efficiency in operational processes to support the business, on the other the valorisation of the increasingly frequent contact points with customers becomes the key to personalized commercial strategies of the "marketing" type to one” and towards total experience dynamics for clients

Conclusions

The CIO of the future is not simply a technical expert, but a true business strategist. Its main role is to develop a network of relationships inside the company with the various stakeholders in order to influence, guide and govern the process of digitalization and innovation .

The CIO of the future will need to have leadership strong and a clear understanding of his or her purpose within the business landscape. This means having a clear idea of how technology can improve performance and effectively communicating this strategy to stakeholders.

Among the new tasks of the CIO is that of working on agile and flexible models: he must not only plan a long-term project, but be able to prioritize innovative projects and results that can be put on the ground quickly and efficient. This change in approach and mentality will allow companies to remain responsive to changes by optimizing their investments and resources.

If you want to know about it, please download the episode from my podcast: MODA - Modern Digital Architecture.

Follow my podcast also on Spotify and YouTube now!