No sector has felt the pressure of digital transformation more than financial services. New and emerging technologies fueled by huge private equity investments are challenging centuries-old business models, and existing businesses are rushing to keep up. In our research into digital transformation, a third of financial services executives felt their industry will be disrupted by new entrants (significantly higher than other industries we looked at).

Whether you’re a large, established enterprise, or a small FinTech challenger looking to disrupt the industry, there are three things that your business needs to be able to do effectively: access and interpret data in real time, create agile and collaborative teams, and stay on top of rapidly-changing regulatory compliance. The companies that can do these three things well stand a much better chance of surviving and thriving in a digitally transformed world.

Data is the new currency:

The proliferation of mobile devices and cloud technology has brought about exponential growth in the amount of data we create – everything from an increase in the volume of mobile banking transactions, to the variety of customer service channels for insurance companies.

For many financial services companies, the data of a transaction is becoming as valuable as the pounds and pence themselves. Being able to access, make sense of and collaborate on that data in real-time on any device is essential. Microsoft Excel offers cutting-edge tools like Power Query to gather data and Power Pivot to model, analyze and transform it into meaningful information to make informed decisions. Add-on tool Power BI gives users the ability to pull in data from internal and external sources to build custom dashboards for a near anytime, anywhere view of the health of your business. Because it’s available as part of Office 365, firms of any size have access to powerful analytics capability of Excel.

Agility at the heart of transformation:

As financial services firms ramp up the products and services they offer to customers, the higher the expectations of those customers for quick answers to their questions. The whole industry is speeding up, as traditional, manual processes get replaced by faster and more sophisticated digital solutions. As a result, financial services companies must be able to access and collaborate on information better than they have before. Fortunately Office 365 provides a tightly integrated platform that builds powerful collaborative capabilities into these tools. In addition to file sharing in the cloud, teams can access, edit, manage and share files and data from any device using OneDrive, SharePoint or Skype for Business, and engage in enhanced coauthoring. Users can collaborate with the videoconferencing, messaging and content-sharing tools of Skype for Business. Files and people remain synced.

Compliance is Crucial:

As noted before, organisations are facing significant data overload due to exploding amounts of increasingly complex electronic data. Regulatory compliance is a crucial part of financial services, and it impacts every technology decision your company makes. But with the proliferation of data, it becomes increasingly difficult to make sure your decisions are compliant. Microsoft’s solutions can be invaluable in compliance.

Want to find out more?

As Microsoft Gold Partners, Complete IT Systems can offer you expert advice on the solutions and how they could be effectively deployed in your business.

To find out more please call us on 01274 396 213 or use our contact form and we’ll arrange a good time to call you back. This handy infographic from Microsoft also outlines succinctly how its solutions can assist your organisation’s GDPR needs.

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