What's new for 2014
Chris Harvey, global financial services industry leader, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, summarized the focus for 2014: “Agility will become key to capitalizing on future growth opportunities in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world.” Agility is the ability to rapidly and thoughtfully respond to changing conditions, moving seamlessly from one position to another. To assume this virtue, banks should consider building agility in three areas – strategy, ecosystems, and minds. (See Figure 4.)
For instance, banks can create agile strategies to respond to evolving product channels like mobile payments by streamlining decision processes, adopting new technologies, and partnering with nontraditional players.
On the operational side, firms may look to build agile ecosystems – operating models that allow firms to seamlessly switch between an internal resource and an external utility, whichever is the most efficient. One way to do this is by creating shared services for standardized yet costly processes, such as know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance. Doing so may create cost sharing of operations that offer limited competitive differentiation.