“What do customers want?” is an age-old question every business tries to stay on top, or presumably ahead, of. New applications are certainly one of those areas where this applies. There are already so many apps for so many things, and yet creative minds seem to flood the marketplace with even more innovative apps every day. Is the appetite insatiable?
New apps for trading communications have certainly been part of this apps proliferation period. Here, at IPC, we’ve developed a wide range of trader apps that help users find data faster, make calls quicker, communicate from anywhere and integrate their work with existing enterprise applications and office systems. And, I’m sure as we go forward, we will continue to add to this impressive collection with other useful apps.
But looking ahead, what trading firms appear to want most is to be enabled to create their own custom apps that give them exactly what they need for their business operations and environment. Apps that help give them a competitive advantage. In particular, trading firms want to:
- Increase workforce productivity
- Improve efficiencies
- Minimize their risk profile
- Enhance ROI across the board
Let’s take “enhance ROI” as an example. A global bank may want an app that helps correlate the time spent by the trader and transaction support team with each customer and the resulting transaction profitability so it knows better which customers to focus on, and perhaps, which members of its own team need to operate more efficiently. Developing such firm-specific versus just a job function or task automation-type apps that help improve visibility of operations can now be done. And it is being done much more frequently by trading or technology firms willing to partner with companies possessing both the industry expertise and development platforms to meet customized needs.
IPC is one such company. Our Affinity Partner Program featuring the Blue Wave® applications development platform provides the environment and technology tools that enable developers to quickly, and easily create the custom apps and integrations that enrich a firm’s trading communications and operations. Compliance and security demands along with the ever-present pressure for greater profitability makes the investment in custom, propriety apps a more appealing and an increasingly used option – primarily because it delivers more powerful results.
More apps? Yes…definitely. But it will be those companies that can enable trading firms to integrate into existing applications or create the more custom applications for their exact business needs that will be part of delivering tomorrow’s most valuable apps.