Kate Cordell, Client Director
In order to achieve the full benefits of any transformation it is more important than ever to ensure you have the right people in the right roles. But how? With changing roles and departments, and new entrants joining the business, how do you ensure you capture and retain the critical knowledge and process expertise that is so vital for harnessing the power of digital technologies? How do you implement new and improved ways of working that provide a competitive advantage, whilst creating the strongest possible foundation to build on?
Overcoming barriers to digital
The highest probability of success comes from ensuring your bank has the right digital expertise and skills to meet the demands of your transformation strategy. A skills gap analysis of key competencies will enable you to see where your strengths lie, and where you need to prioritise skills improvement (or acquisition) to implement your strategies. With a clearer understanding of the skills which may be relevant moving forward, you will also be equipped to future-proof your bank.
To keep skills and competencies up-to-date, and to upskill when needed, requires capability to execute training, coaching and mentoring. This will ensure your teams are working at their optimum, to deliver change faster and take full advantage of the opportunities ahead.
Adapting to needs along the way
A target operating model is crucial to achieving your vision for growth and transformation. It places your bank in a better position to scale-up agility, for faster innovation and continuing competitiveness at a lower operating cost – delivering value for the bank as a whole.
Abandoning traditional hierarchies for a more agile operating model certainly pays off. By fostering continuous learning, applying lean-agile patterns can empower small teams lower down in the organisation to make decisions, and can streamline processes so teams in different parts of the organisation work more closely together. At the same time, lean-agile patterns can ensure high- performing teams have the talent and capability to drive projects and deliver innovation faster.
Furthermore, automating operations and changing to agile development techniques – with frequent testing against requirements – enables continuous refinement. This facilitates a far faster time-to-market, so your customers see improvements far more quickly.
However, it is important to remember that agility is all about learning on the go. So, the end product may be very different from the one envisaged at the outset, and sometimes a fast and decisive shift in project strategy will be required. But whatever the outcomes, the ongoing testing process will ensure that, ultimately, the resulting product will meet your requirements.
