How accountants, banks and insurers overcome disruptive forces with intelligent information management

How accountants, banks and insurers overcome disruptive forces with intelligent information management

It is no secret that banks, accountants and insurers are struggling with their information management and this puts their right to exist under pressure. They have to deal with various disruptive developments in their sectors. How can accountants, banks and insurers maintain their right to exist?

In their research into information management, PricewaterhouseCoopers says the following to these sectors:

"Financial service providers, accountants and insurers are stuck in the middle of information management. Old systems, processes and relationships make innovation extremely difficult, even when new technology drives up user expectations and attracts new competitors in their markets. Many organizations still struggle with their digital transformation, even if their future growth depends on it. 

Many of the disruptive forces faced by these service providers put enormous pressure on their growth, progress and search for greater efficiency. Accountants, financial service providers and insurers often struggle with the following issues:

  • All their information management systems have been built over the years.
  • Massive mergers and acquisitions after the 2008 crash created the enormous challenge of integrating and rationalising the existing systems of various merged organisations.
  • Huge investments in "repository-centric" content management resulted in a strategy focused on where a document is located instead of what kind of document it is.
  • Increasing legal and regulatory requirements directly related to the way information is managed and by whom.
  • New fintech competitors (Amazon, Alibaba, WeChat, Apple, Google) looking for highly profitable business models compared to existing players. Business models that are capable of modernising the old technologies.
  • A new generation of "digital native" banks, accountants and insurers with a totally different customer approach than traditional players.

A survey of AIIM executives in these sectors confirms this:

91% of respondents said, "Our information management strategy needs to be modernised to meet modern challenges.

93% said, "Digitising and standardising business content is one of the main bottlenecks to our digital transformation.

57% said, "My organisation is concerned that we will face serious disruption to our business model in the next 2 years.

How should accountants, insurers and banks address these numerous challenges? They face a challenge that may be easier to solve than you might think.

Deloitte's Banking Outlook of 2018 highlights the importance of maximising the productivity and effectiveness of their knowledge workers and changing their efforts from repetitive to value-creating work: "These service providers will need to re-educate their employees to work together while providing them with more integrated employee experiences - from recruitment to retirement - to reflect the richer experience their customers are asking for".

Below are two facts from the AIIM study about the tools used daily by knowledge workers:

On average, 58% of the unstructured information used in business systems (such as ERP, HR, Finance, CRM and Project Management) is stored with those business systems (and is therefore not available for other processes) IN PLACE OF with a Content Management System.

Why this is important: Many legacy content management systems are designed around customisation, large volumes and processes. These systems did the work within this process, but they were not designed for easy integration with other important business applications. The resulting silos of information in a single process and application-specific repositories now prevent accountants, insurers and banks from modernising their business processes for a customer experience today.

A key requirement for an intelligent information management solution is easy integration with business applications through content services that can be tailored to the needs of a particular process.

Almost 50% of accountants, banks and insurance companies describe their management of Microsoft Office documents (such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint) as "chaotic" or "unmanageable".

Why this is important: Older content management systems aim to somehow convince knowledge workers to place their work in the "right" repository and to ensure that they are also assigned the right metadata along the way. Consolidation and the need to do more with fewer people in these sectors made this expectation totally unreasonable. As a result, a large part of the daily business documents are unmanaged and stored without metadata.

Because of this development, it is often impossible to find the right document when it is needed. Where was that file stored? Who was the last to edit it? A modern approach to information management is aimed at organizing information based on what it is, rather than where it is stored. And to do this with characteristics (metadata) that are useful for knowledge workers, artificial intelligence and machine learning are crucial. A modern platform automatically assigns metadata that are necessary to make information findable, manageable and transparent.

The digital transformation of accountants, insurers and banks starts with simplifying the lives of their knowledge workers. They are increasingly strangled by the increasing information chaos. Intelligent Information Management offers them the liberation they need to overcome the disruptive development and players.

Curious about how Intelligent Information Management makes organizations resilient to disruptive developments and players? Take part in our webinar on Intelligent Information Management.

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It is no secret that banks, accountants and insurers are struggling with their information management and this puts their right to exist under pressure. They have to deal with various disruptive developments in their sectors. How can accountants, banks and insurers maintain their right to exist?

In their research into information management, PricewaterhouseCoopers says the following to these sectors:

"Financial service providers, accountants and insurers are stuck in the middle of information management. Old systems, processes and relationships make innovation extremely difficult, even when new technology drives up user expectations and attracts new competitors in their markets. Many organizations still struggle with their digital transformation, even if their future growth depends on it. 

Many of the disruptive forces faced by these service providers put enormous pressure on their growth, progress and search for greater efficiency. Accountants, financial service providers and insurers often struggle with the following issues:

  • All their information management systems have been built over the years.
  • Massive mergers and acquisitions after the 2008 crash created the enormous challenge of integrating and rationalising the existing systems of various merged organisations.
  • Huge investments in "repository-centric" content management resulted in a strategy focused on where a document is located instead of what kind of document it is.
  • Increasing legal and regulatory requirements directly related to the way information is managed and by whom.
  • New fintech competitors (Amazon, Alibaba, WeChat, Apple, Google) looking for highly profitable business models compared to existing players. Business models that are capable of modernising the old technologies.
  • A new generation of "digital native" banks, accountants and insurers with a totally different customer approach than traditional players.

A survey of AIIM executives in these sectors confirms this:

91% of respondents said, "Our information management strategy needs to be modernised to meet modern challenges.

93% said, "Digitising and standardising business content is one of the main bottlenecks to our digital transformation.

57% said, "My organisation is concerned that we will face serious disruption to our business model in the next 2 years.

How should accountants, insurers and banks address these numerous challenges? They face a challenge that may be easier to solve than you might think.

Deloitte's Banking Outlook of 2018 highlights the importance of maximising the productivity and effectiveness of their knowledge workers and changing their efforts from repetitive to value-creating work: "These service providers will need to re-educate their employees to work together while providing them with more integrated employee experiences - from recruitment to retirement - to reflect the richer experience their customers are asking for".

Below are two facts from the AIIM study about the tools used daily by knowledge workers:

On average, 58% of the unstructured information used in business systems (such as ERP, HR, Finance, CRM and Project Management) is stored with those business systems (and is therefore not available for other processes) IN PLACE OF with a Content Management System.

Why this is important: Many legacy content management systems are designed around customisation, large volumes and processes. These systems did the work within this process, but they were not designed for easy integration with other important business applications. The resulting silos of information in a single process and application-specific repositories now prevent accountants, insurers and banks from modernising their business processes for a customer experience today.

A key requirement for an intelligent information management solution is easy integration with business applications through content services that can be tailored to the needs of a particular process.

Almost 50% of accountants, banks and insurance companies describe their management of Microsoft Office documents (such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint) as "chaotic" or "unmanageable".

Why this is important: Older content management systems aim to somehow convince knowledge workers to place their work in the "right" repository and to ensure that they are also assigned the right metadata along the way. Consolidation and the need to do more with fewer people in these sectors made this expectation totally unreasonable. As a result, a large part of the daily business documents are unmanaged and stored without metadata.

Because of this development, it is often impossible to find the right document when it is needed. Where was that file stored? Who was the last to edit it? A modern approach to information management is aimed at organizing information based on what it is, rather than where it is stored. And to do this with characteristics (metadata) that are useful for knowledge workers, artificial intelligence and machine learning are crucial. A modern platform automatically assigns metadata that are necessary to make information findable, manageable and transparent.

The digital transformation of accountants, insurers and banks starts with simplifying the lives of their knowledge workers. They are increasingly strangled by the increasing information chaos. Intelligent Information Management offers them the liberation they need to overcome the disruptive development and players.

Curious about how Intelligent Information Management makes organizations resilient to disruptive developments and players? Take part in our webinar on Intelligent Information Management.

Knowledge files
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