Winning at Digital Transformation:  Be First, Be Smarter, or Cheat

For those of us old enough to remember the September 2008 financial crisis, the movie Margin Call is a fascinating, art-imitating-life financial drama. It takes place at an unnamed investment bank the night before the mortgage-backed securities sell-off and meltdown. Alarms go off at 10:00 p.m., when a junior member of the risk management team used analytics to discover that the firm's position in mortgage-backed securities was far over-leveraged; it will likely bankrupt the company unless immediate, drastic action is taken.

Six hours later the CEO, John Tuld, calls a 4:00 a.m. emergency meeting of the board of directors and top executives; Tuld asks his senior leadership how the company might best survive the impending financial carnage; his questions draw blank stares from his team. Frustrated, Tuld corners them with the question, “What have I told you since the first day you stepped into my office? There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first… be smarter…or cheat,” quickly adding, “and I don’t cheat.”

It's a memorable line – and a handy recipe for success. In fact, I found that FICO Platform clients are winning by being first and smarter.

1) Be First

Speed is a formidable benefit in the financial services business. That’s why “first mover advantage” is such an enviable position: being first enables a company to forge a strong market presence, use artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other new technologies to set the customer experience standard for others to follow, and grab market share among innovators and early adopters with groundbreaking products and services.

Here are 10 examples of FICO Platform helping clients work faster:

1. A new digital in bank in Singapore acquired 100,000 customers in just 10 days.
2. A Brazilian bank decreased the time to approve credit decisions from weeks to just two days as part of its digital transformation progress.
3. 10x faster new solution delivery was achieved at multinational bank based in Europe.
4. As part of its digital transformation effort, a leading North American bank is launching new offerings 5X faster than before.
5. A Latin American bank now generates offers 97% faster than before.
6. An EMEA bank is going live with digital technologies projects in half the time they did previously.
7. A 10-weeks-to-days reduction in implementation timelines was achieved by a Canadian bank.
8. A Latin American bank achieved a 90% reduction in new credit policy production time.
9. An EMEA bank now makes system modifications 96% faster since its digital transformation.
10. After just 12 months, a global credit card firm recouped its digital technologies investment 20x.

2) Be Smarter

Of course, outsmarting the competition is the end-goal of digital transformation, and is usually better than speed.  Take an area like loan approvals: it’s possible to use digital technologies to make approvals faster than other lenders, but not if it means cutting corners on analysis, which introduces the possibility of added risk.  Speed and smarts together is the ideal combination – the highest, ultimate state of digital transformation – especially when they represent the combined domain expertise of your smartest team members, and their combined innovation.

Here are 10 examples of FICO Platform helping clients work faster and smarter:

1. Post- digital transformation, more than 90% of customers of an APAC bank are now onboarded with no manual intervention.
2. A 16% lift in acceptance rate and 22% increase in revenue was enjoyed a by Brazilian bank.
3. A Latin American bank sharpened its digital technologies to achieve a 25% lift in bookings.
4. An APAC bank introduced a daily transaction score for more than 7.5 million customers.
5. A 60% increase in digital transactions was experienced by a Latin American bank.
6. A Latin American bank grew credit line revenue and number of users by around 15%.
7. As part of a company-wide digital transformation, 20+ siloed decisioning areas were consolidated onto a single centralized platform by a Canadian bank.
8. A 20% reduction in IT development and digital technologies expenditure was achieved by Latin American bank after its digital transformation.
9. A 160% YOY gain in automated approvals was experienced a North American lender.
10. A Latin American bank increased credit delivered by 55% and renegotiation rate by 22%, while reducing bad debt by 41%.

3) Cheat

FICO obviously does not advocate cheating; to the contrary, we are a leader in fraud detection and financial crime prevention.

We do, however, enjoy giving our clients undertaking their digital transformations an “unfair advantage” over their competitors, to leverage innovation and deliver exceptional business results.  Is it cheating to bring innovative new products and services to market faster than your competitors? Or create new double-digital revenue streams, while others’ growth is flat? Of course not.

The bottom line is that long before Margin Call was released, FICO has been instrumental in helping clients to make faster, smarter more profitable decisions, and apply innovation to achieve their digital transformation goals. Since the launch of FICO Platform, 130 of them are outpacing and outsmarting the others. 

John Tuld would be very pleased.

Learn How FICO Platform Can Power Your Digital Transformation and Boost Collaboration

• Explore innovation with FICO Platform
• Watch the video “FICO® Platform: Applied Intelligence, when and where it matters”
• See customers discuss their use of FICO Platform
• Read my article from The Journal of Digital Banking, “How Financial Services Leaders Are Using Enterprise Intelligence to Optimize Efficiency Ratios”
• Watch FICO Platform in action with the story of your everyday consumer, Digital Jane