Last week we were privileged to take a deep dive into Industry 4.0 – a.k.a The Internet of Things.
For those not familiar with the concept, Industry 4.0 is the digitisation of industrial value chains and networks and regarded as the next industrial revolution.
Common standards drive inter-connectability between all players and produced parts, with each resource becoming an information carrier able to communicate with other resources. This creates compatibility, high visibility across the value chain and real time decision-making.
The impact is profound. Customers can seek highly personalised offers in small batches. Producers must be flexible to reconfigure to changing demands. The ecosystem of suppliers, logistics and finance have to integrate seamlessly into the end-to-end process.
If you extrapolate further the whole basis of competition changes. Rather than protecting IP and tying clients in to long service contracts, Industry 4.0 will facilitate ‘plug & produce’. Everything becomes open, client satisfaction is based on service excellence and market participants can share costs and opportunities.
Digital Transformation Required
Creating industrial Lego is not easy. Processes need to re-engineered and digitised across the whole value chain to eliminate paper, manual work and phone communication.
Technology has to change too. Systems must become heterogeneous, providing new interfaces for communication and applications through which new products and partners can be added easily.
Significant shifts in mindset and of course investment, with payback measured in years, are also required to make this a reality.
The Relevance To Banking
As we listened we pondered that many parallels exist with Banking. For example, many Banks still tie-in clients by bundling ancillary services with lending.
Miss-selling and Market manipulation occur with amazing regularity (Commodity and Credit markets anyone?), suggesting a lack of corporate governance and clients simply not understanding the offering.
Legacy infrastructure acts as a barrier to change, most notably in payments and the digital core banking systems required to operate a next generation bank.
In fairness most banks understand the benefits of digital transformation, after all client satisfaction stagnates and innovative challengers pose a threat to already strained financials. Some understand but lack the skills or resources to change.
The laggards remain sceptical despite FinTech allowing you to bank without a bank using Industry 4.0 principles – providers connected by API’s, seamless delivery, intelligence analytics and suggestions.
How Union Can Help
At Union Financial Technologies our solutions are fully enabled for the Digital age, here’s 10 ways how:
- Union solutions are client centric, it is easy to analyse data and relationships.
- Manage on a single entity and full Enterprise basis, no silos!
- Union solutions are modular, pay only for what you require.
- Agile – customise to your need, scale quickly, adapt easily.
- Host in the Cloud or on your servers, you decide.
- Our architecture is open, interface easily and securely with others.
- Automated processes and messaging provide efficiency and op risk gains.
- Process multiple data, transactions and applications in real-time 24/7/365.
- Make it easy for clients to engage, understand and purchase your offer.
- Innovative mindset and deep expertise in Digital.
To learn more about how we have helped established and start-up please visit our Case Studies or Contact Us.
