In the marketplace institutions face structural changes to their businesses that require re-engineering of operations. Meanwhile regulation is an increasing threat to profits, especially with the mandate for higher and better quality capital and liquidity. In 2012 these issues represent a major change as a sea of new global regulations come to the industry and as customers, both consumers and businesses, begin to demand services delivered in their preferred channel, with new features and benefits, and in real time. The result is more complexity to the business, operational, and IT needs across the institution.

We believe that these many demands can be met with a few strategic initiatives. These include an investment in customer experience management (CEM), and reengineering operations through business process management (BPM). Together these two initiatives help automate compliance while streamlining the institution and enabling better quality service. To be effective over the long term one more key enabling initiative, improved business intelligence (BI), is needed. Today’s BI capabilities are supported by better quality data and the use of analytics for both current insight and predictive foresight. It is insight and foresight that enable an institution to run the business efficiently for today and proactively for tomorrow. Those institutions that make BI a predictive tool can fundamentally change their operations to deliver on compliance and customer mandates even as they continue to change. Those that do not will need luck on their side.

To learn more, CEB TowerGroup members can access Top Trends and Technologies in Financial Services for 2012.