After flying from Nashville to Boston yesterday, I got home, unpacked my suitcase, then repacked it and got in the car and drove 2 1/2 hours to Wolf & Company, P.C.’s Tech Leadership conference to see Jason Henrichs present on why #innovation is dead and #partnerships are done. A lot of great points, but some of the highlights: 1. FIs need to look at their product development/improvement efforts as a portfolio. Leaders put 70% of their efforts into extending products, 20% into bending, and 10% into transcending. Why? Because the return on those efforts is the reverse (10% on extend, 20% on bend, and 70% on transcend). 2. Partnerships should be for rethinking the business model, not replumbing existing processes. And BTW, vendors are NOT partners. 3. Innovation without strategy is a prescription for failure. I did have a favorite slide, however: :) #banking #fintech Emmett Shipman
Soren Bested
10mo
Overall agree except on the “vendors are not partners”. Have a chat to Agent IQ’s portfolio. The challenge too often is driven by misalignment of incentives. When vendors are optimizing for PS revenue rather than client value creation bad things happen
Austin J. Wentzlaff
10mo
Focus. FIs need to focus. They are trying to be all things to everybody (all demographics, all products and services, etc) and it’s a difficult business to be in. If we can focus on how we do each thing better (I like the portfolio idea here) then we can set ourselves apart. We provide commoditized products and services and shiny UI only gets you so far. We need to focus to show our members that we truly understand what we’re doing and that they can TRUST us. That’s what people really want, a trusted authority in their life, not the newest online account opening platform.
Jason Henrichs
10mo
I knew you couldn’t resist a thirst trap title like “Innovation is Dead and Partnerships are Dumb”
Lisa Kuhn Phillips
10mo
Great points. Who said "and BTW, vendors are NOT partners"? The good ones are. Takes two.
RJ Grimshaw
10mo
Intrapreneurs drive innovation from within the confines of established organizations, acting as catalysts for change and progress. The quote, 'Innovation without strategy is a prescription for failure,' underscores the importance of purposeful and directed innovation. For intrapreneurs, it's not just about coming up with new ideas; it's about aligning those ideas with the broader goals and objectives of the organization. While creativity and novel thinking are essential, they need to be tethered to a strategic vision. Without this guiding strategy, innovation can become aimless, leading to wasted resources and missed opportunities. Intrapreneurs, therefore, not only ignite the spark of innovation but also ensure that this spark is channeled in the right direction to bring tangible value to the organization.
Patricia Tripar
10mo
We are seeing this more and more, where product management really means contract management, and extending is often confused with return on investment. Partner management is an under represented role, not be confused with vendor risk management:
Marla Sofer
10mo
Partnerships can be fabulous if they are thoughtfully constructed and managed. VERY few partnership teams know how to do it. Most are purely channel sales and marketing. Agree that vendors aren’t partners. Good strategic partnerships know the balance of trade between both parties using several detailed measures, fill gaps each business needs filling, and are managed carefully to deliver needle moving value. Otherwise…ok, they’re done.
Andrew Taylor
10mo
The whole ... everyone or every company needs to innovate thing ... always struck me as odd, basically diluting the meaning of innovate
Julian Hebron
10mo
I’m sure all SaaS fintechs disagree w point 2 (“we’re not a vendor, we’re a partner”), but I think you’re saying vendor stuff is software that powers operations and partner stuff is adding new products/offerings, etc. Is that right?
Helping Institutions Prevent Fraud, while Managing Risk and Compliance
10moI saw your mainstage at NCR, Ron. It was very good. My favorite part was how FIs have potentially overvalued or are misdirected on the role they play with their customers. No one else seems to be talking about this. Many FIs are in pursuit of and heavily invested in becoming emotional and personally hitched to their customers but I think this is a false pursuit and even a pretentious one with possible repercussions. Allowing an FI to come closer to me so they can recommend more products comes nowhere close to making up for lacking customer service, time-consuming process, and readily available info. I'm curious to know if others agree or think differently...?