Frost & Sullivan says technology vendors are rolling out new and improved communication, collaboration, and contact centre solutions to help financial service institutions connect a workforce that is more widely distributed than ever before.
Comprising various business types, including commercial and consumer lending, investment agencies, and insurance collections, the global financial services sector employs diverse worker roles across back-office and frontline staff, including industry-specific and general business roles.
With 87% of financial institutions employing frontline workers globally, vendors will be particularly concerned with delivering technologies that can enhance service delivery for this cohort in addition to in-office users.
“As the financial services industry emphasises customer service support, it prioritises customer experience investments over communications and collaboration technology. Digital technologies, including the rise of cloud meetings, messaging and calling services, application programming interfaces (APIs), and programmability is enabling organisations and their technology partners to empower office, frontline, and remote workers more effectively,” noted Robert Arnold, Principal Analyst, ICT, Frost & Sullivan.
He suggested that technology vendors need to tailor solutions to different types of users and integrate software tools with mission-critical workflows to automate business processes, streamline decision-making, and increase employee and customer satisfaction.
Arnold added, “The most successful vendors will be the ones that leverage best practices, including portfolio breadth, solution functionality and packaging, partnerships, and channel programs that have worked well in different verticals.”
Recommendations for vendors
Offer a unified platform: Financial services organisations are looking to invest in unified communications and collaboration (UCC) and contact centre solutions while also making UCC tools available to customer care agents.
Develop capabilities in cloud meetings and messaging: They need to employ synchronous and asynchronous collaboration tools to empower frontline workers to collaborate anywhere, anytime, on any device and network.
Tailor solution packages: Pre-packaged service and device offerings can help automate the quoting, sales, and provisioning of financial industry solutions.
Partner with specialists: Collaborating with vertically specialised software, device, and services vendors can enable communications technology providers to gain unique capabilities and engage customer stakeholders outside of IT.
Develop channel programs: To form relations in other industries, vendors must employ robust channel programs with compelling vertically oriented incentives, training, sales collateral, and lead-generation tools.
