Achieving Data Excellence in Financial Information Management
Financial institutions have accumulated large quantities of valuable data and metadata, but the levels of maturity in terms of how they utilize that data differ from one organization to another.
For many organizations, data still reside in different data stores within the enterprise—discovering, consolidating, and integrating that data in a way that increases its relative value remains a challenge.
Data Management Strategies for Complex Data
Financial services firms deal with many forms of information and have done so for a long time. But new business needs can often outstrip what the current application portfolio can provide.
A frustrating situation arises where the relevant information is out there – somewhere – but it’s either not in a useful format, or easily connected with other pieces of information.
This is particularly true when it comes to customer information. Essential information can be locked away in multiple, incompatible legacy systems. Important customers see elongated response times and associated frustration. Costs and effort escalate. Compliance and reporting risks increase.
The Benefits
A review of case studies where organizations have created a unified customer information platform shows a related group of benefits – which we collectively call data agility.
- Sub-second responses for frequent queries.
- Dramatically improved query results: more accurate, fewer misses, and better context
- Reduced developer backlog for new requirements.
- Improved security posture with simpler compliance reporting.
- Improved ability to create newer applications that easily use all available information.
- Bringing new insights to analytical and machine learning efforts.
Data Operations Will Migrate to the Cloud in the Next Three Years
Cloud migration is still an important step for many organizations. And while most companies are now leveraging cloud-based tools in some capacity, not every organization is currently leveraging cloud capabilities for their data management initiatives.
But customers are now demanding more of financial institutions, and several in-demand capabilities can only be leveraged through cloud-based data management.
Further, there is mounting evidence that cloud-based processes are not only safe but also highly effective when the organization needs to scale its computing powers. Instead of bringing in more computing power onsite, the company can simply enlist more resources from its cloud services provider.
Conclusion
Although the respondents are focused on different types of benefits from the technology, it’s clear that cloud-based data analytics combined with AI solutions will be the key drivers of the financial industry’s data strategy in the coming years.
Most organizations have already achieved a healthy level of data maturity, and they are working to take advantage of new opportunities to reduce risk, increase revenue, and improve the customer experience.
