We create the consumer experience of the future

A trend analysis of the financial services industry is a perfect example that depicts cycles of change in the economy. Such changes include more or less regulation, emphasis on technology, advanced business models, diversified business units, amongst others. One can argue that no two-time period in the financial industry has been identical. In an interview given to two Microsoft leaders, David Vander, who is the worldwide banking industry manager of Microsoft and Brian Jackson, who is the worldwide banking technology strategist of Microsoft as well, a lot of ground was covered with regards to the role information technology has played over the years and will play into the future in the financial services industry, most especially banking.
David asserts that there is a growing awareness and understanding that financial services is largely a digital industry and technology underpins everything this industry does. In addition to that, he states that a major strength of this industry is the tremendous innovation over the years, such as ATMs, mobile phone based interactions and Internet based interactions. On the other hand, he believes that the current turmoil will lead banks to re evaluate where capital is invested and will really enable businesses know where their comparative advantage really lies. I personally believe that we can already see this trend occurring in the economy. A lot of divisions in banks are being shut down and are reduced in size due to redundancy and cost saving strategies. I believe that the consequence of this trend will lead to a very slow growth in the banking industry for a long period of time and a smaller investment in human skill.
On the other hand, Brian strongly believes that the future of this industry lies within the clients from other businesses and the general public. He believes that there is going to be a trend of innovations beginning in the consumer market and making its way to onto the enterprise. Furthermore, he believes that there will be a technology trend around powerful and expensive hardware both in terms of processors and storage. Given this data, there will be a lot of change as to how businesses analyze consumer behavior and also build their models. Finally he believes that the future world of having numerous applications that may consist of several different services may deploy virtualized infrastructure and that may need a lot of information technology complexity.
In conclusion, I believe that the future of the financial services industry goes to technology and the customer. Technology has helped make the financial industry what it is today and will pave the path for tomorrow. There will be heavy reliance of technology in helping guide banks and other financial institutions in improving efficiency and producing accurate data that will help make more rational decisions. In contrast, we can also expect technology replacing more humans in the financial industry. There will be very slow growth in this industry for long periods of time, but as demand rises, we can expect an expansion in this industry, not just with technology, but also with human beings.


http://www.paperjam.lu/archives/2008/11/2410_Techno_Microsoft/index.html