Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

We have learned that the cloud has enabled a shadow IT to emerge. That sounds scary (mostly to the IT people), right? But we have also learned that shadow IT is not totally a bad thing, as long as there is communication, coordination, architecture, and governance. We discuss this shadow IT more specifically in this Advisor.

We have learned that a big part of the motivation or benefit for going to the cloud is agility. Call it flexibility or scalability if you want, but “agility” is a bit broader and evokes the principles of the Agile movement. The cloud allows you to try something, fail, and move on to something else with relatively less severe consequences. The cloud does not require you to calculate with high accuracy the amount of resources you will need, or the length of time you will need them. You should be able to scale up and down, to add and remove services, to get the latest updates, and so on — without having to do the work yourself.

Most organizations will experience a large security incident at some point. The difference between an organization that survives and thrives following an incident versus one that flounders can be summed up in one word: preparation. Athletes, emergency responders, performers, and many others practice for hours before the main event. So why do organizations not do the same for security incidents? Urgent timelines, high stress, uncontrollable events, and scrutiny from customers, regulators, press, and investors are surely good reasons to put better preparation practice in place. While many organizations have a disaster recovery and business continuity plan, few focus on preparing specifically for a large security incident. In this Advisor, we examine the preparation of a strategic incident response plan.

This article takes us into the insurtech platform world and describes how incumbents must adapt their business models and processes to exploit technological opportunities to remain competitive. The authors suggest that the definition of “platform” can extend from a purely technological definition to a more integrated one, and they explore ways incumbents can benefit from the capabilities insurtech offers.

This Executive Update explores some tools and techniques that have been used to successfully deal with and manage a hidden culture.

For almost 20 years, cloud and related technologies have been transforming entire industries. Interestingly, most of the discussions around transformation tend to focus on the technical aspects, technical solutions, platforms, and various as-a-service offerings. Although the technology perspective is very important, it’s not the most critical. Truly transformational projects require a much broader perspective. In this Advisor, we explore the impact of cloud-enabled transformation on product lifecycle, processes, and organizational culture.

This article looks at the fintech “arms race,” reporting country rankings in several foundational areas. It explores the areas of AI, blockchain, and cryptocurrency, and how countries are faring in the fintech arms race as measured by their investments in, and adoption of, these three fintech baskets.

In this article, the authors explore how banks could become “identity trust anchors” — and increase revenue as part of the process. Technologies like self-sovereign identity can help with the identity and privacy problem that is ubiquitous on the Web. In fact, KYCaaS (“know your customer” as a service) is a proposed new business model enabled as a new revenue-generating service. This is an interesting look at how fintech technologies, products, and services provide opportunities for companies to profitably commercialize transaction processing.