Tech professionals hoping to move up the career and management ladder at financial institutions have to understand, and embrace, the vital role that customer “centricity” is now playing for the finance industry.
As consumers and businesses slowly creep out from under the economic headwinds that kept investing activity on a low level, banks and lending organizations need to open the doors wide and strive to meet every potential client need. That effort doesn’t stop with the front office but also includes the IT organization when it comes to developing new services and programs.
As a recent article at BankTech explains, customer interaction experience and satisfaction is crucial to driving new business forward and technology will play a vital role. Here’s a quote from the article that sums it up in a nutshell:
"We're in the middle of a long-term shift in technology. Not just three or four years, but decades. The trend is that control is going back to account holders,” says James Van Dyke, president and founder of Javelin Strategy & Research, “When we look at new forms of payment and channels - from ATMs to online banking - and how people interact with their finances, we find things are much more complicated for consumers today than they were several years ago."
The challenge for IT professionals is knowing where things are headed today, from both a tech and customer requirement perch, and being prepared for the future.
One of those future requirements will likely be greater mobile device banking capabilities as users rely more on smartphones to conduct banking and interact with financial institution accounts.
So attaining knowledge of mobile applications already in play, and emerging technologies, would be a smart move for tech workers who want to be a leader in the IT organization.
But knowing the technologies and making them work is just one part of the career advancement equation. As industry experts point out in the BankTech piece, tech workers also need to keep shoring up business skills and customer service skills so that the technology created meets client needs and makes banking the best experience possible.
A good resource mentioned in the article is a book written by consultant Brett King entitled "Bank 2.0: How Customer Behavior and Technology Will Change the Future of Financial Services."
IT managers and CIOs are not only technology evangelists but business evangelists and tech professionals aiming to achieve that leadership role need to be able to meld those two skill sets and have great opportunities ahead in the financial industry.
As consumers and businesses slowly creep out from under the economic headwinds that kept investing activity on a low level, banks and lending organizations need to open the doors wide and strive to meet every potential client need. That effort doesn’t stop with the front office but also includes the IT organization when it comes to developing new services and programs.
As a recent article at BankTech explains, customer interaction experience and satisfaction is crucial to driving new business forward and technology will play a vital role. Here’s a quote from the article that sums it up in a nutshell:
"We're in the middle of a long-term shift in technology. Not just three or four years, but decades. The trend is that control is going back to account holders,” says James Van Dyke, president and founder of Javelin Strategy & Research, “When we look at new forms of payment and channels - from ATMs to online banking - and how people interact with their finances, we find things are much more complicated for consumers today than they were several years ago."
The challenge for IT professionals is knowing where things are headed today, from both a tech and customer requirement perch, and being prepared for the future.
One of those future requirements will likely be greater mobile device banking capabilities as users rely more on smartphones to conduct banking and interact with financial institution accounts.
So attaining knowledge of mobile applications already in play, and emerging technologies, would be a smart move for tech workers who want to be a leader in the IT organization.
But knowing the technologies and making them work is just one part of the career advancement equation. As industry experts point out in the BankTech piece, tech workers also need to keep shoring up business skills and customer service skills so that the technology created meets client needs and makes banking the best experience possible.
A good resource mentioned in the article is a book written by consultant Brett King entitled "Bank 2.0: How Customer Behavior and Technology Will Change the Future of Financial Services."
IT managers and CIOs are not only technology evangelists but business evangelists and tech professionals aiming to achieve that leadership role need to be able to meld those two skill sets and have great opportunities ahead in the financial industry.
By: Judy Mottl
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