Tuleeko Amazonista pian myös pankkijättiläinen?
Amazon on verkkokaupan innovatiivinen edelläkävijä. Nyt puhutaan siitä, että Amazon on mitä ilmeisimmin laajentamassa toimintaansa Pohjoismaihin ja “tulossa” myös Suomeen. 1)Suomalaiset ovat toki voineet tilata Amazonin verkkokaupasta monenlaista tavaraa jo vuosi, mutta paikallisen toiminnan käynnistäminen – ja maakohtaisten Amazon.dk, Amazon.fi ja Amazon.se -verkkokauppojen perustaminen – on iso muutos Pohjoismaisen vähittäis- ja erikoiskauppamarkkinassa. Amazon kymmenen vuotta sitten ja Amazon tänään eivät ole yksi ja sama yritys. Amazon on hyvin innovatiivinen monialainen palveluyritys, jonka laajentuminen sekä orgaanisesti että epäorgaanisesti uusille liiketoiminta-alueille on ollut pääsääntöisesti hyvin menestyksekästä. Amazon selvisi niin dotcom-kuplasta kuin finanssikriisistä voittajana. Amazonia pidetään yhtenä maailman asiakaskeskeisimmistä yrityksistä ja sitä on toistuvasti pidetty yhtenä maailman innovatiivisimmista yrityksistä. 2)Asiakaskeskeisyys on Amazonin koko liiketoiminnan ydin. 3)Joidenkin mielestä Amazonin verkkosivusto on sekava, väsähtänyt ja ruma. Amazonilla ei kuitenkaan toimita muusta maailmasta irrallisten kirjoituspöytien ääressä, vaan Amazon tekee jatkuvasti pieniä muutoksia parantaakseen muun muassa ostamisen todennäköisyyttä ja asiakkaiden läpivirtausta. Amazon on jatkuvasti laajentunut muun muassa pilvipalveluihin ja viime vuonna Amazon laajensi kivijalkaliikkeisiin ostamalla Whole Foods -luomukauppaketjun. Nimi Amazon – ja jossain määrin Amazonin “näkyvä” digitekeminen erityisesti data-analytiikan ja digimarkkinoinnin saralla – on pyörinyt jo useamman…
On the Futility of Innovating on Your Own: From Goods-Dominant Logic to Service(-Dominant) Logic in the Financial Services Industry
It is a kind of cliché to state that the financial services industry landscape is changing rapidly, continuously and often unexpectedly. Customers don’t seem to care about those incumbent financial services firms that are not responsive to their needs. Although there has been a constant stream of assurances from various banks, wealth managers, and insurance companies that they are customer-oriented and responsive to customer needs, a lot of things remain to be done. Customer-orientation hot talk, as I call it, is a form of self-deception, and although most of the financial services companies still heavily rely on old-dated goods-dominant logic, they talk as if the reality is something entirely different. The truth is that most financial services companies are again faking true customer-orientation and this is a real problem. This is very problematic as it deceives both the client as well as shareholders (or stakeholders). Signaling, shouting out loud random words, is simple but…
You Need to Understand Everyday Lives of Your Clients, Banker!
“Customer dis-intermediation is one of the biggest challenges that a retail bank must contend with when it comes to retaining its central standing as the number one go-to provider of financial services.” – Bragi Fjalldal, CMO & VP, Meniga 1)Banking Technology: “The race to meaningfully engage with customers is on“ We are living fascinating times in the world of financial services industry and institutions. As the late, great business professor C. K. Prahalad and his collaborator Venkat Ramaswamy pointed out in their magnificent book The Future of Competition: Co-Creating Unique Value With Customers (2004), the role of the consumer is rapidly changing, and consequently the traditional mindset of company-centric value creation (and goods-dominant logic) is disintegrating before our very eyes. Prahalad and Ramaswamy argue that we are now witnessing the emergence of “the informed, networked, and active consumer, combined with the convergence of technologies and industries. Driven by these two forces, the consumer is increasingly…
Why I wasn’t so surprised that Deposit Solutions acquired Savedo?
Allowing access to rich data sets through APIs will create a whole generation of financial service solutions. What will become very interesting is seeing how other industries as well as emerging Fintechs and start-ups might begin to use this data to augment services, or create new ones. – Kent MacKenzie, Director (Deloitte, 1.6.2017) It was confirmed on 15 August 2017 that German-based open banking and savingstech start-up Deposit Solutions (established in 2011), backed by Peter Thiel and various other well-known venture capitalists, has acquired its German-based rival Savedo. Deal terms were not disclosed. 1)Lepak, S. (2016). “Why terms of acquisitions are not disclosed?”. CoFoundersLab Discussions, 20.9.2016. As noted in the official press release by Deposit Solutions, With the acquisition of SAVEDO, Deposit Solutions is further expanding its B2C capabilities, adding more than 18,000 registered clients, 13 partner banks and two new regions – Austria and the Netherlands – to its existing…
Book Review: FinTech Innovation by Paolo Sironi
There is no lack of differing opinions on the future of wealth management as everyone wants to be heard. We know for sure that the future of wealth management industry is most definitely shaped by the influx of new technologies, significant global regulatory turbulence, and various changes in the customer behavior. So what else is new? We have recently witnessed how new players have entered – with great success – to areas of the financial services industry that were considered off-bounds for innovative new entrants, and even the mainstream C-suite is constantly talking about going all digital. 1)Financial Times (2016). Barclays UK sees digital technology as crucial to its future. [Accessed 3 Aug 2017] It’s no wonder that the wealth management industry is very keen to understand how the complex equation of growth versus profitability is supposed to work in the era of growing revenue and expense pressures combined with…
Chatbots are coming your way: Start moving now!
There has been a lot of interesting discussion on how bots, and especially chatbots, could redefine the future of customer service and customer experience. The rise of bots has been exceptionally fast, and Facebook played a significant role in the chatbot revolution when they announced in April 2016 that Facebook Messenger platform supports chatbots – the number of chatbots on Facebook Messenger has been growing fast. We have been living in the world of (chat)bots for a couple of years now, and Facebook’s adoption of chatbots has been a significant landmark in the more general adoption of bots. There has already been some evidence that chatbots are gaining legitimacy amongst consumers. According to Aspect Software Research’s report published last year, “44% said that if a company could get the experience right, they would prefer to use a chatbot or automated experience for CRM.” This discussion has been, of course, promoted mainly by those…
The new retail deposit marketplaces are here, and they are not messing around
It’s well-known that retail payments, accounting, e-commerce solutions, merchant acquiring and retail lending are the most well-developed and quickly matured segments of the fintech industry, both regarding executed deals, the number of investments, and compound annual growth rate (see Tanaya Macheel’s post on fintech funding). This should not be very surprising as there are still various low-hanging fruits ready to be grabbed by innovative new entrants. It's important to have a plan for #fintechs. Growth is coming from #insurtech & #assetmanagement. Don't forget #regtech #finnishfintechtalks pic.twitter.com/rMDblb82UV — Thomas Brand (@thlbr) May 4, 2017 We are still waiting for similar momentum to gather pace in coming years in multiple other parts of the financial services ecosystem, e.g. corporate finance, corporate payments, SME lending and asset finance, and insurance. It’s true that from the perspective of basic banking products and services, financing and credit have already been hit hard by the fintechs on all fronts by alternative finance…