What Should the Bank of Today Do to Become the Platform of Tomorrow?
SunTec Business Solutions
Our vision is to enable every value exchange in the digitally driven world.
How can banks become platform companies? You will agree that banks own something that many companies want – customer trust and a deep knowledge of their customers’ lives. As the first step towards becoming platform companies, banks must dig deep to identify what do they own and what value does it hold. For instance, a transaction made in 1990 may be a bigger clue to a customer’s mindset than any recent transaction. This is a crucial first step before they can move towards becoming platform companies.
Banks must also create an ecosystem view of the customer – they must think beyond just financial transactions and focus on the purpose of the transactions. For example, a customer swipes their credit card and pays USD 100,000 for a Ford - not because they wanted a car, but because they wanted a convenient option to travel. Banks must go beyond the swipe and understand the purpose of each transaction in their customers’ lives and convert these transactions into value exchange, because transaction coupled with purpose creates a value exchange.
Once the bank creates an ecosystem view of customers, it is important that they identity where partners can come in. They must understand areas where partners can strengthen their offerings and define the value each partner will provide.
Next, they must create a strategy to become a platform company:
1.?Choose the platform model that is in line with the customer experience that the bank wants to provide.
2. Ensure the internal organization structure is aligned to this platform strategy. Without a strong internal alignment, the external focused platform business model will fail.
After the internal alignment, banks will have to focus on doing the following:
1.?? Design the platform ecosystem: The platform ecosystem will be built through value exchanges and APIs. Banks must ensure that the APIs are strong enough to handle the value flow across the banking ecosystem. The platform must also keep in the mind the need for agility and scalability.
2.?? Create a team to drive platformification: The bank must create a focused and multi- disciplinary team that includes product owners from different lines of business, technology experts, and subject matter experts across the different components of the banks’ value chain.
3.?? Simplify the internal product line-up: A complex product line-up will increase costs. Banks must focus on being profitable. They must use simple frameworks such as BCG’s growth share matrix to identify profitable products and leave out products that are not profitable.
As the next step, based on the platform model selected, banks can identity their partners. They must prioritize a strong cultural alignment while selecting the partners and focus on the partners’ capability to learn as the relationship progresses. They need to keep in mind that they may not always be the stronger partner in every relationship and hence create governance mechanism for each partner separately. But banks also need to create specific rules for the entire ecosystem.
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Banks must also be ready to move beyond traditional R&D and focus on ecosystem-based innovation. This will require an alignment with different stakeholders and necessitate a realignment internally.
Finally, in a platform model, banks will have to create a mindset of continuously evolving. For customer owners, it is important that this mindset of continuous evolution drives a sense of transformative urgency across the entire ecosystem. Partners in such an ecosystem must be willing to change and adapt quickly. For banks that are solution providers, it is important that they are proactively address the aspirations of the customer.
What are your thoughts on how banks can successfully transition into platform companies? Share your insights and join the conversation on innovation and customer-centric banking.
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