Speeding from Data to Insight in Financial Services

Introduction: The Data Deluge Is a Blessing—and a Curse

Today’s markets are increasingly unpredictable. Across all industries, only half of top-performing companies maintain their leadership over 10 years, according to McKinsey. Businesses competing in industries that are in the midst of digital transformation face even more volatility as digital-native firms come out of nowhere to displace them. Such firms have the advantage of no aging legacy processes or infrastructure to hold back their fresh ideas and Agile strategies.

Financial services firms have some of the highest stakes. On top of market uncertainty, they must combat fraud and deploy robust security measures to meet a growing set of regulations—all while combating digital-native upstarts that are redefining their industry.

What can help? Data. More specifically, mining data for actionable insights that helps with critical decision making.

Research shows that even the largest, most entrenched incumbents, if they make wise investments in digital technologies—especially data analytics—are as likely to steal revenues from traditional players as digital natives. Indeed, frequently the fast-moving incumbents are the ones creating life-threatening competition to “slow movers”.

But data today is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because making wise use of data is the number one competitive advantage a business can possess today; a curse because there’s too much of it, ...