The WEALTHTECH Book

Embracing Emerging Technology

By Dr Yannis Kalfoglou

AI Strategist, Samsung Electronics

and and Dave Dowsett

Global Head of Strategy, Innovation and Emerging Technology, Invesco¹

Digitally transforming your company is no longer a debate – it’s a necessity. What is a debate is how to execute a digital transformation and what to focus on. Without a doubt, these transformations are most successful when driven from the board to break through the “frozen” middle who are more worried about job security and fear of change over organizational advancement. There are many factors driving technological change, but some of the more pressing catalysts include: customer satisfaction driven by the FinTech generation, social media, competitors becoming technology-driven and using technology to provide an advantage, rate of change, demographic expectations, constant geopolitical landscape volatility and, for regulated institutions, the ever-changing regulatory landscape.

Human beings are comfortable at status quo; change makes us uncomfortable, but as the world around us changes, so must we. When times get tough due to lack of innovation, a default reaction is: “It works today, so why change it?” and this attitude leads to cutting the innovation and transformation arms to focus on the current cash cows, albeit shortsightedly. As much of the financial industry has been disrupted, the asset management sector is starting to experience the changing tides of technology too. This type of disruption ...