As technology continues to change the way individuals and organizations interact with banks and other institutions, financial services companies have to be able to keep up with these trends or risk losing customers and market share to their competitors. Even before the pandemic, for example, more consumers were shopping, banking and transacting online. When Covid-19 emerged, these trends accelerated quickly due to the lockdowns, operational shutdowns and social distancing requirements.
“Increasingly, when we make purchases, it will be done through a phone – this is true both online and offline, as many of us are ditching the habit of carrying plastic in our wallets in favor of mobile payment services,” Bernard Marr writes in Forbes.
“This is just one other way in which society is becoming ever more digital and connected, and to most of us, our phones are the primary interface between the digital world and the real world,” Marr continues. “Nowhere is this [truer] than in financial services, with every bank and insurance company keen for us to download and install their apps.”
More banks and financial services providers are also using the cloud as a primary software delivery method, and primarily due to its scalability and affordability.
“Cloud technology makes it simpler and cheaper to spin up projects based on other breakthrough technologies mentioned in this list, such as mobile, blockchain, and artificial intelligence (AI),” says Marr, who points to the financial services sector as an early adopter of AI, where the advanced technology’s “role in the automation of repetitive processes, risk assessment, and fraud prevention is well established.”
Adapting to a Changing Environment
Financial services organizations are known for being tech-savvy, but Docusign says the recent global landscape shift has accelerated the importance of committing to digital transformation. “With very little warning, teams had to radically evolve operations to meet new employee and customer demands,” the company points out. “Now that the dust has settled, it’s time to answer some important questions around the future of financial services.”
For example, financial services firms are asking themselves questions like: Which changes are here to stay? How should brick-and-mortar locations operate moving forward? How is the industry landscape shifting? How can momentum from the past two years be preserved as digital solutions are made a more permanent part of everyday operations? And, what’s the right balance to strike between security and customer experience?
Financial institutions are also adapting to accommodate a hybrid workforce in a world where employees are working from more dispersed locations (among financial institutions, Docusign says 70% expect to pivot to hybrid work). “As part of that shift,” it says, “they need to thoughtfully consider how they foster collaboration and productivity across remote and in-person environments.”
NetSuite Offers Key Wins for Financial Services
For help navigating the current financial services landscape while also planning ahead, more organizations in the sector are embracing cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions like NetSuite, which offers a full suite of capabilities for growing financial services organizations. Key functionalities that the ERP provides include (but aren’t limited to), financial management, budgeting and forecasting, customer relationship management (CRM), business intelligence (BI), procurement and human capital management (HCM).
These capabilities merge to create a complete, end-to-end solution for a wide range of financial services organizations, including commercial banks, investment banks, wealth advisory services, accounting firms and other providers that operate in the sector. With ERP Success Partners and NetSuite in their corners, these organizations can effectively accelerate business performance with software built for the cloud.
The top benefits that financial services get from NetSuite include:
1. Improved operational and business agility
Companies can respond quickly to regulatory and market changes and meet their customers’ changing needs.
2. Streamlined compliance
Manage risk and track performance with fully auditable business processes and enterprise analytics.
3. Integrated budgeting and forecasting
Equip your organization with planning, budgeting and forecasting tools to ensure financial stability and growth.
4. Improved CRM
Gain a full understanding of all of your customer interactions and preferences across all locations, branches and divisions.
5. Accurate revenue management
Eliminate spreadsheets and disparate systems and start reporting revenue with confidence and accuracy.
6. Better people management
With NetSuite HCM, you can maximize the value of your company’s most important resource: its people.
All Under One Roof
Through its powerful BI tool, NetSuite also empowers your support team with a 360-degree view of each and every customer. And, manage your growing financial services business’ multiple subsidiaries, business units and legal entities—all from a single cloud ERP.
