{"id":57501,"date":"2018-10-25T17:57:43","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T17:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=423813"},"modified":"2018-10-25T17:57:43","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T17:57:43","slug":"outside-perspective-how-the-financial-industry-is-banking-on-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/10\/25\/outside-perspective-how-the-financial-industry-is-banking-on-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Outside perspective: How the financial industry is banking on AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

MvdB:<\/strong> Interesting. It sounds like they aren\u2019t aiming to become banks, then, but are looking to own the customer journey and end up as competitors for part of the business.<\/p>\n

SM:<\/strong> That\u2019s correct. We\u2019re seeing the whole insurance business travelling towards a direction where interaction with consumers becomes the key focus. The more you interact with the customer, the closer they become accustomed to your brand.<\/p>\n

MvdB:<\/strong> There are a lot of companies waiting for the technology revolution, but in my opinion, it\u2019s already here. I see lots of examples, including artificial intelligence. What are your thoughts on the perception of digital transformation in the finance industry?<\/p>\n

SM:<\/strong> In banking, I\u2019ve noticed that it\u2019s much easier to make better decisions when investing smaller amounts of money. Similarly, you have better performance and agility as a small business with a startup mentality. It\u2019s the same with financial institutions. They have a legacy that needs to be maintained, renewed and sometimes politics and corporate culture make it very hard, almost impossible, to be agile \u2013 and that includes adopting new technology to help them transform.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen large financial institutions show that it\u2019s possible to manage their legacy operations and daily business, while at the same time, almost separately, fostering a more agile startup mentality for transformation. New business ventures mean that this startup mentality must be separated which, of course, also means that more money has to be spent.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/a><\/p>\n

MvdB:<\/strong> It\u2019s interesting to hear how other large institutions are reflecting and managing their transformation, particularly with regards to harbouring different mentalities for different areas of the business. At Microsoft, we\u2019re still in the middle of our transformation process, and while we\u2019re not there yet, we\u2019re making progress and learning all the time.<\/p>\n

SM:<\/strong> I honestly think that Microsoft has done a fantastic job at transforming itself with its cloud and many other services \u2013 and that\u2019s reflected by professionals and the market in general. It\u2019s amazing to see how you struck lightning twice. You re-invented the business and grew, when you could have chosen to remain stagnant.<\/p>\n

MvdB:<\/strong> Having been here for many years, I\u2019ve witnessed our shift from a \u2018know it all\u2019 culture to one that encourages a growth mindset, and it boils down to culture and mentality. I think we\u2019re in the middle of a learning experience and learning mentality, where all of these small things start to matter. Do you think these two things are becoming more of a core factor of transformation, beyond simply introducing new technology?<\/p>\n

SM:<\/strong> Yes absolutely. At startups, we see a culture where, if there is a problem, people sit down, and solve it. Compare this to some large corporation\u2019s politics and red tape, and you can see how the wrong culture can discourage people, regardless of what technology is available. People like to see that their input makes a difference, and that\u2019s much harder in huge organisations.<\/p>\n

MvdB:<\/strong> If you\u2019re operating 100,000+ people globally it\u2019s certainly a challenge, but at the same time, you need to be sure that you spark that startup mentality in people. I think this is where the culture element in the leadership becomes a super-critical factor in changing an organisation.<\/p>\n

SM:<\/strong> It comes from the top.<\/p>\n

MvdB:<\/strong> Absolutely. This is true for us as well. If you take Satya as an example, he is living what he wants this company to be.<\/p>\n

If we focus on the technological side of transformation, specifically data \u2013 do you feel that data is the most important currency today in commerce?<\/p>\n

SM:<\/strong> Yes, it is. But there\u2019s so much data, so much noise. It\u2019s not just the data, but more about how you use that data. Everyone, including big banks, has data, but it\u2019s the thinking behind it that counts \u2013 using data scientists, algorithms, machine learning AI and more \u2013 to get something out of it. That\u2019s where AI, machine learning, and the people behind the algorithms, come in.<\/p>\n

MvdB:<\/strong> I agree. I\u2019m asking this question because I think there\u2019s a lot of misperception about data being the new oil for this century and it\u2019s a great tagline on paper, but the question, of course, is that data alone, is just data, and that\u2019s what it will be forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MvdB: Interesting. It sounds like they aren\u2019t aiming to become banks, then, but are looking to own the customer journey and end up as competitors for part of the business. SM: That\u2019s correct. We\u2019re seeing the whole insurance business travelling towards a direction where interaction with consumers becomes the key focus. The more you interact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[280,50],"class_list":["post-57501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-ai","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}