Technology Trend: Cloud Computing

Trends

• Trends: What do we look for?
• Technology Trend: Cloud Computing
• Industry Trend: Unbundling of banks – Lending Club
• Regulatory Trend: Deregulation – RBI granting banking licenses
• Industry Trend: Immediate everything – Payments
• Market Trend: Branchless Banking
• Market Trend: New Market Entrants
• Market Trend: Banks Extending Their Reach
• Industry Trend: Bank White-Label Services
• Industry Trend: Dual Strategies
• Societal Trend: Exploding Data
• Technology Trend: Banking API’s
• Market Trend: Digital Natives
• Market Trend: Mobile Adoption
• Technology Trend: Digital KYC
• Potential Technology Trend: Internet of Things
• Industry Trend: The Bank Finds You
• Potential Industry Trend: Mobile Wallets Replace Cards
• Industry Trend: Social & Mobile Payments
• Industry Trend: Virtual Currencies
• Industry Trend: Social Finance
• Technology Trend: Big Data
• Potential Industry Trend: Bank as Data Manager
• Technology Trend: WiFi Availability
• Technology Trend: Fast Cycle of Consumer Technology
• Technology Trend: Biometric Authentication
• Industry Trend: Social Servicing
• Industry Trend: Social Reputations
• Market Trend: Increased Substitution with Capital Markets
• Industry Trend: Aggregator / Comparison Sites

I always talk about industry and technology trends as being an important input to strategy. It seems a bit vague so I have decided to create a new series that catalogs the major trends affecting the banking industry.

A key technology trend is utilizing applications, storage and compute power from the cloud. A key word here is “utilizing“. The benefits of a utility are lower costs and increased agility. These benefits come from software defined environments, cloud operating environments, and the API economy.  Security and regulatory constraints are forces but these are not trends (I assume these will be resolved to the benefit of the cloud computing trend) so I will not account for them here.

So the first technology trend that I want to start covering is cloud computing.  Banks must adopt a strategy that leverages the strategic, operational and development agility that comes with cloud adoption.  Architects in the banking industry must be informed about cloud computing standards.

My advice would be to implement any new major systems (core banking, CRM, channels) in the cloud.

Traditional corporations are abandoning legacy systems and moving to the cloud.  Banks should too–Some have already done so successfully in Africa and Australia.

I will add to this post over time. For now let me just offer another bread crumb here.

Cloud is closely related to the following banking industry trends, which I will surely blog about:

• Increased competition from entering banks due to fewer barriers to entry.  If your strategy is “fast follower” then you have more competitors to keep up with.
• Increased competition from non-banks.  Technology is reducing the benefits of some economies of scale and increasing others.  This is causing the unbundling and reconfiguration of business models.
• Increased competition from existing banks.  Banks are differentiating themselves or reducing the differentiation of their competitors by rolling out new products and services faster.  They are also getting better at zeroing in on what customers want through deft experimentation.

The Cloud Computing trend is also closely related to the Big Data trend.

Posted with Blogsy