Remaining the Employer of Choice in a Dynamic Talent Market for Banking and Financial Services GBS
November 9, 2023 |
8:30 am EST | 7:00 pm IST
In our recently released report, “The Top GBS Employers™ in India, the Philippines, and Poland – 2023,” we discovered a noticeable decline in employer brand perception among Banking and Financial Services (BFS) GBS organizations in all three countries.
Join this virtual roundtable as we explore the reasons behind the decline, whether there are specific segments these organizations are losing their talent to, and the current and potential strategies for becoming a BFS GBS employer of choice.
This interactive discussion offers a unique opportunity to engage in conversations with our expert analysts and your peers. Together, we will discuss strategies to maintain a positive brand image, what’s working and what’s not in other organizations, and ways to enhance your own organization’s employee value proposition.
Participants will explore:
What factors impact GBS brand perception as an employer in key markets?
What are the top employee grievances, and what are your peers doing to alleviate them?
What initiatives do best-in-class GBS organizations deploy to enhance overall brand perception?
What is the impact of work model (remote/hybrid/in-office) on talent management practices and brand perception?
Who should attend?
GBS site leaders
GBS strategy leaders
Heads of human resources
Heads of talent acquisition
Virtual Roundtable Guidelines
The only price of admission is participation. Attendees should be prepared to share their experiences and be willing to engage in discourse.
Participation is limited to enterprise leaders (no service providers). Everest Group will approve each attendance request to ensure an appropriate group size and mix of participants. The sessions are 90 minutes in duration and include introductions, a short presentation, and a facilitated discussion.
According to Aaditya Jain, Vice President-BFSI tech services practice at Everest Group, “High-interest rates and margin pressures have pushed BFSI firms to focus on portfolio profitability and drive drastic rationalization efforts – vendor rationalization, workforce rationalization, product rationalization, IT application and infrastructure estate rationalization, etc.”
Therefore, BFSI firms are likely to take a cautious approach to technology spending, resulting in another quarter of softness in demand, but the structural demand outlook remains strong.
Two of the leading IT companies in the nation recently struck partnerships in agriculture to diversify their income streams as they face challenges in most sectors, including BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance), IT, and telecom.
According to Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO of Everest Group, the uncertainties and increasing geopolitical risk are having a similar impact on agriculture firms as COVID did when it highlighted the flaws in old systems and people-driven processes.
Facing headwinds in most verticals like BFSI, tech, and telecom, two of the country’s top IT firms recently signed deals in agribusiness, thus diversifying their revenue stream.
Peter Bendor-Samuel, CEO at Everest Group, said that the uncertainty and increased geopolitical risk is influencing agribusiness companies in much the same way that COVID exposed the weakness in legacy systems and people-driven process.
The banking operations market has become relatively consolidated at the top, with the leading participants capturing a larger share of the market. Additionally, specialists have entered specific banking segments. Lines of business such as cards and payments and retail banking are growing significantly. Enterprises are focusing on becoming future-ready, agile, and resilient to manage volume fluctuations and staff shortages.
Providers are differentiating themselves by offering as-a-service models and focusing on digital transformation solutions by leveraging analytics, automation, and AI, combined with industry expertise and an advisory-led approach. Additionally, they are leveraging the partnership ecosystem and making new acquisitions to enhance their capabilities and improve the time-to-market of their offerings. Buyers are increasingly partnering with participants capable of providing holistic support in the form of proactive guidance on industry best practices, customer experience design, and faster, cheaper, and better transformative models.
In this report, we analyze 34 banking operations service providers and position them on Everest Group’s PEAK Matrix® as Leaders, Major Contenders, and Aspirants based on their capabilities and offerings. The report will assist key stakeholders, such as banks, financial institutions, and providers, in understanding the current banking service provider landscape and make informed sourcing and partnership decisions.
This report features 34 banking operations service provider profiles and includes:
Providers’ relative positioning on Everest Group’s PEAK Matrix® for banking operations
Providers’ market impact
Providers’ vision and capability assessment across key dimensions
Enterprise sourcing considerations
Scope:
Industry: Banking and Financial Services (BFS)
Geography: global
The report covers vertical-specific banking operations and does not include horizontal business processes such as Finance and Accounting (F&A), HR, procurement, and contact center
This assessment is based on Everest Group’s annual RFI process and an ongoing analysis of the banking operations industry
The PEAK Matrix® provides an objective, data-driven assessment of service and technology providers based on their overall capability and market impact across different global services markets, classifying them into three categories: Leaders, Major Contenders, and Aspirants.
The Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) industry faces various challenges in today’s evolving environment, from inflation and cybersecurity to increased competition from fintechs, and changing customer expectations. Desktop Infrastructure Transformation (DIT) has emerged as an attractive solution to combat these market disruptions because of its ability to optimize costs, empower users, and enhance IT efficiency. In this blog, we’ll explore how DIT can help the BFSI industry tackle pressing issues.
Facing various internal and external disruptions, BFSI enterprises struggle with difficult questions. However, a recent Everest Group survey of 500 senior stakeholders supports that “fortune favors the bold.” The survey found 59% of respondents identify digital transformation maturity as a critical priority to withstand disruptions.
Considering these findings, the following framework provides an overview of disruptions BFSI enterprises face and outlines the actions to offset them:
Source: Everest Group 2023
BFSI enterprises need to act swiftly and effectively to mitigate the impact of these disruptions. As highlighted in the framework above, DIT and its two sub-components – as part of an overall mature digital transformation approach – can provide a strong buttress against disruptions.
These sub-components can be broadly defined as follows:
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): Technology that allows a user to access a desktop operating system and its applications from a remote server and thin clients
Full-stack Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS): Cloud computing environment with bundled pricing for hardware, software, and ancillary management services in a pay-per-use model
In the following section, we examine the most pressing disruptions BFSI enterprises face and explore how DIT can provide a solution to address them:
Disruption
Evidence
Complication
Question
DIT to Rescue
Compounding impact of concurrent inflation and recession
Inflation is at a 40-year high in most developed countries such as the US and UK
– Reduction in banking payments and transactions
– Dip in insurance investments and higher payout expenses
– Deterrence of new bond issuances and Initial Public Offerings
How can enterprises offset the impact of inflation and be prepared for a recession?
Cost effective and pay-as-you consume model through DaaS or VDI
Embracing Banking 4.0 and seizing new business opportunities
The customer acquisition cost for a physical branch is approximately 50 times higher than for digital banking
– BFSI companies are under pressure to digitize their platforms/services immediately
– Automation and data-driven decision-making has become pertinent
How can BFSI enterprises effectively leverage the Banking 4.0 approach and seamlessly launch related businesses and products?
Cloud-based desktop infrastructure for agility and to ensure faster time-to-market for digitized products/services
Increasing prevalence of cybersecurity attacks
More than 60% of global financial institutions with at least $5 billion in assets were hit by cyberattacks in 2022
– Higher risks of financial losses and reputational damage
– Increased regulations and compliances, creating operational complexities
How can BFSI companies manage cybersecurity threats while maintaining productivity and profitability?
Embedded security over bolt-on security through centralized security controls and Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based threat analytics within VDI
Encroaching fintech startups, reshaping traditional BFSI
Venmo’s users increased by 11% year over year in 2022, while the traditional bank growth on average is about 2-5%
– Increased pressure for collaborations between fintech startups and traditional banks
– M&As leading to business process changes
How can enterprises seamlessly transition to new business models and strengthen collaborations?
On-demand desktop infrastructure scalability and seamless integration across enterprises through VDI and DaaS
Source: Everest Group 2023
Empowering BFSI Organizations through DIT
To better understand the composition of VDI and full-stack DaaS in a typical enterprise environment, the below framework provides more detail of the two previously defined key DIT components and their enablers:
Note: The above framework is not an exhaustive representation of all the components within DaaS and VDI.
Source: Everest Group 2023
Now, let’s take a look at the benefits of this transformation initiative by exploring some applications of DIT that ideally align with the needs of the BFSI sector:
Cost optimization: With agile capacity management, increased device lifespan, and a pay-as-you-consume model, BFSI organizations can achieve cost efficiency while maintaining desktop infrastructure quality
Single pane of observability: AI-led analytics, synthetic bots for application performance testing, and proactive alerts help IT resources within a BFSI enterprise effectively monitor and manage their desktop infrastructure, achieving operational excellence
User empowerment: Personified Virtual Machines (VMs), a self-help marketplace, and DevOps-based feature development enable organizations to empower their end users and improve their experience
IT efficiency: Scalable architecture and limited upfront investment support expansion to alternative business models, geographies, and product lines. Cloud-hosted models also allow firms to seamlessly integrate with other IT stacks during mergers and acquisitions (M&As), and divestitures
Security and reliability: Automated patch management, trust zones, centralized security controls, and role-based access are some DIT features that enable continuous compliance with industry regulations and help BFSI enterprises avoid security breaches
Making DIT Real for BFSI Enterprises: Balancing Stability and Change
Let’s walk through the following use cases of DIT in various BFSI segments to demonstrate its value for employees ranging from investment traders to data scientists and knowledge workers:
Use case 1: Ensure zero downtime in a trading environment
Scope: DaaS
Industry: BFSI
Sub-segment: Investment banking
Category: Emerging
Persona: Power worker (traders)
The business need:
Supporting resource-intensive tasks, such as pre-trade processing, trade confirmation, and trade clearance
Enabling work on network-heavy applications, such as Bloomberg and Reuters
Embedding security and compliance
Supporting high-resolution audio-visual tasks
DaaS Benefits:
Lag-free, high-performance machines
Seamless access to critical trading systems through inexpensive thin clients
Enhanced user productivity and experience through improvement in metrics such as win rate, loss rate, and winning trades
Interactive, multi-screen support to bolster decision-making
Use case 2: Facilitate data-driven, rapid decision-making
Scope: VDI, DaaS
Industry: BFSI
Sub-segment: All
Category: Emerging
Personas: Data scientists, business analysts
The business need:
Identifying meaningful data patterns from large data sets for smarter decision-making
Leveraging data analytics for cyber risk insurance analysis, fraud management, actuarial analysis, and credit record management
Identifying potential opportunities and threats
Benefits:
Equips data scientists/analysts with a high-performance computing environment, accelerating decision-making
Enables secure remote access to custom platforms and tools to run compute-heavy Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning workloads
Proactively identifies malicious transactions and requests
Use case 3: Realize synergies from M&A activities sooner
Scope: VDI, DaaS
Industry: BFSI
Sub-segment: All
Category: Prevalent
Personas: Knowledge workers and power workers
The business need:
Accelerating consolidations divestitures, and M&As
Providing omni-channel access during transition to critical functions such as wealth management
Avoiding business disruptions, cost leakages, and productivity loss
Benefits:
Seamless accrual of targeted synergies
Efficient onboarding of new workforce, improved productivity, and reduced employee downtime
Cost optimization through models such as pay-per-use in device infrastructure
These use cases demonstrate the substantial value DIT offers in addressing the vital requirements of the BFSI sector and mitigating market disruptions. Several key benefits of DIT include cost optimization, operational excellence, user empowerment, and enhanced IT efficiency.
Yet, it is essential to recognize and thoroughly assess the associated risks of this technology, such as user acceptance and training challenges, as well as potential dependencies on network infrastructure. By carefully evaluating these factors, enterprises can make informed decisions about investments like DIT aimed at enhancing the IT infrastructure and diminishing market disruptions.
Ultimately, however, understanding the risk of inaction is critical. As Tony Robbins, life coach and author, aptly notes, “Risk comes in many forms, but the most common one is simply not investing.”
