How to Use Technology for Financial Services Success
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Technology has been acting as the backbone of business infrastructure for most industries today. That is no different for the financial services industry. IT for finance professionals and businesses has been a vital component for several reasons.
Specialist providers of IT for finance companies are in charge of ensuring that everything runs smoothly for the team, protecting them from cybersecurity threats and ensuring the sensitive data handled by these firms is kept safe. Finance businesses also count on technology partners for technical support and procuring the equipment and tools they need to get their work done.
Nowadays, these functions are relatively commonplace in an IT-finance partnership but remain of utmost importance to the continued operations of businesses. However, the benefits that can be obtained from the strategic use of technology don’t end there. Firms can take advantage of their partners’ expertise and create a competitive advantage by strategically employing IT for finance.
That’s the topic we’ll be exploring in this article. Read on, and if you’d like 1:1 advice, Book a call with Spector IT!
What does success look like for financial services companies?
Our experience with financial services companies has given us a good idea of what success means for successful players in this industry. Businesses are not just looking for growth and profit but are also keen on improving investor relations, increasing efficiency, profitability and cash liquidity. In an industry heavily categorised by mergers and acquisitions, it’s essential that companies are on top of their numbers and able to demonstrate a good performance and growth trajectory.
Plus, developing business capabilities is seen as vital for long-term growth. Businesses are pursuing market expertise status and using that as a lever to increase visibility and trust. Beyond that, other business capabilities highly sought are effective data security and building a strong work environment to retain and attract talent.
Each of these business and financial outcomes can be subdivided into multiple goals, and technology could impact almost all of them. If you can strategically manage IT for finance, tech may push you forward. If not, the areas in which tech is lacking could easily drag you down.
Top ways IT for finance professionals can help achieve these outcomes
Specialist IT for finance can boost your business in many ways. Beyond security and support, tech could significantly impact your operations, compliance and your team performance. We’ve written articles about each of these topics, focusing mainly on the perspective of a financial services firm:
- How can IT Support Financial Services Operations
- Benefits of Applying Technology in GRC for Financial Services and how can tech help gathering evidence to prove compliance.
- Using Technology to Boost Team Performance
All of these points can be analysed to help you achieve your business outcomes. Apart from them, tech can also directly assist with the following matters:
Increased efficiency
IT for finance has proven to have an incredible impact on efficiency, which generally reflects directly on growth and profit. Tech can help you streamline and automate business processes and speed up time-consuming tasks. You can virtually simplify your business activities with the right set of tools and free up time and headspace for your workforce.
That way, your team will be able to focus on tasks that add more value to your business and increase face time with customers.
Streamlining and simplifying processes is also necessary when thinking about scaling your business. That way, when you save time due to an efficient process, you are not just doing that once but actually profiting from this efficiency every time the task is replicated. Several of the most common tasks in business today can be automated or facilitated – especially the most repetitive ones.
Even tasks that require human input can benefit from automation tools. They can help with alerting, communication, producing documents and reports, templating, generating proposals, obtaining signatures and more!
Increased knowledge of business understanding
To adequately use tech to improve your processes, you need to have a solid understanding of the most critical tasks and the ones that can be improved. You must conduct an in-depth analysis of your business operations to understand the bottlenecks, inefficiencies and lags that are disrupting your team and hurting your numbers.
A firm like ours, offering services to strategically develop IT for finance, can assist with that. We have found that teams are often aware of their main issues but fail to define the best solution simply because they’re unfamiliar with all the possibilities.
Once you understand the parts that can be improved and begin to make them more efficient, you’ll have a solid understanding of your core business activities and how each moving part in your process is connected. This is also crucial when defining which pieces of tech, equipment and data your team would need to continue operating – as these are the ones that should be prioritised by security and disaster recovery efforts.
With these things in mind, your business can become much more efficient and resilient. You’ll be more accurate when procuring, hiring, scaling and improving your operations.
Increase Trust from Clients and Investors
These benefits are not something that’ll remain restricted to your inner circle, but they can be noticed by most people who interact with your company. A customer can immediately tell apart an efficient and well-oiled process from a clunky or messy experience.
By increasing your overall maturity and developing IT for finance, you’re improving the everyday experience for employees, customers, partners and investors. It’s a simple, effective way to increase trust and bring your business to a higher standard by adjusting your environment and routine.
IT for Finance Beyond the Basics – Bringing your business tech to the next level
Most businesses still treat technology as a secondary support function inside their business, even though it acts as the backbone of most companies today. It has the potential to bring significant gains and assist your business in many ways if you know how to make the most of it and go beyond the basics.
The majority of partnerships between finance organisations and technology firms are based on technical support and cybersecurity – which are indeed essential – but don’t attempt to leverage tech to achieve their business and financial outcomes. That’s where you should reach beyond!
By treating IT as a strategic function inside the business, you can establish what you want from technology and how it will assist you in getting there. Integrating tech into your business processes and embracing digital transformation are not simple tasks and require planning and dedication. If not done correctly, it won’t have the desired effect.
Financial Companies working with Spector IT
Before investing in the new shiny objects ahead of you, make sure you have a solid understanding of what your business needs and how it’ll develop in the long term. We can help you build a plan and support you along the way – we’ve been doing that for 20 years.
Book a Call to talk to our specialists and discuss your business needs and current pains. We’ll provide a tailored solution to solve any issues and prepare your business for long-term growth.
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