The relationship between data and continued regulatory requirements means that analytics will play a key role in your business strategy in the future.
Those that prioritise the importance of analytics and move quickly to address the need for analysed data, will be rewarded sooner rather than later. As regulation and compliance remain at the forefront of the financial services sector, professional service and consultative offerings must tackle legacy migration in an efficient manner to allow regulators to easily access and search business owned data. Consultancy surrounding legacy migration means that consultants are able to demonstrate the ways in which financial institutions should meet regulatory requests. Once the issue of legacy migration is well on its way to being resolved, attention can be put on the analytics behind the stored data.
Beyond regulation and its challenges, early adopters are driving forward the role that analytics can play, in the voice recording space and beyond. A deeper focus on cross-selling, service quality and staff monitoring are areas in which the pack leaders are placing greater emphasis and will soon reap the rewards. Data is thriving, particularly within the payments and mortgage market for example where it plays a central role everywhere you look – i.e. in the mortgage market, data plays an integral role in determining the financial level at which people may apply for a mortgage. Although analytics is still in its embryonic stage, institutions are being forced to adapt whether they like it or not and move with the times. This means that everyone wants to be capable of utilising their data effectively and this is where consultants can help businesses leverage their analytics at a higher level.
With the prospect of MiFID II implementation not far away, regulatory drivers are still a major talking point for financial institutions. At the same time, there is a substantial incentive to pursue the avenue of big data and analytics in order to gain the potential pay out from first mover advantage. From a European perspective, banks require a level of support that only a select group of consultancies can provide. This relates to the best practices of consultants who have experienced various viewpoints across the financial services industry and faced a range of regulatory challenges.
As financial institutions begin to recognise the difficulty of obtaining human capital, the prospect of hosting or outsourcing entire technology functions is something that these institutions are opening their minds to, and will be pursuing over the next two years. One option for financial institutions is to obtain a managed service, where they can have all of their technology hosted on a unified platform. In this case, institutions are able to optimise costs whilst simultaneously possessing a hosted-type approach allowing them to be more specialised within this space.
With this in mind, the value of engineers and designers to tailor and design a bespoke offering is of great importance. The battle to source and retain the best creative talent is a difficult one, as it is vital to have people who understand the systems inside out and possess a deep level of understanding to provide efficient, innovative solutions during the legacy migration process and subsequent application of analytics. Consistency is a key driver for clients when looking for partners, as they require unified, single source systems with which to pull all of the strands together, in order to be flexible and adaptable to the requests of regulators. Firms have a unique opportunity to outsource all of their data to a consultant who can give unrivalled insights, and allow the business to grow in more areas than just the voice recording space.
As the desire for operational efficiency continues, financial institutions want to consolidate their operations onto a single platform. Consultancies can offer value at a higher point in the value chain due to best practice expertise and unrivalled levels of support. The effort to unify and comply will continue up until the implementation of MiFID II in 2017 and beyond, but many will be turning their attention to the advantages of analytics much sooner in order to gain additional business benefits as well as assistance in regulatory compliance. Regulation will continue to be at the forefront for the foreseeable future, but it is important to remember what lies ahead, specifically the challenges beyond standardisation of regulation.
