Industries Plan to Improve Technology Strategies Amid Pandemic, Survey Finds

 Pandemic
Industries plan to improve technology strategies amid the pandemic

A new global survey of 500 financial services C-suite executives conducted by Broadridge Financial Solutions has found that more than half of financial services companies plan to accelerate the implementation of their next-generation technology strategies.

Tim Gokey, CEO of Broadridge, said: “Financial services players have shown they can adapt and change during the pandemic. Going forward, they will continue to drive digitization and mutualization to improve client experience, resiliency, and cost. Prior investments in digital, cloud, and mutualized technologies have enabled companies to be more resilient during the crisis, and executives are taking careful note as they plan for the future.”

The COVID-19 pandemic is expected to affect their operating model and strategy toward next-generation technology as they are now increasing cybersecurity and risk management (63%), enhancing multi-channel client communications (60%), improving customer engagement and experience (53%), making significant cost reductions (45%).

Financial services companies have switched their investment priorities from interactive digital technologies (72%). These comprise of digitizing customer and employee experiences, workflows, and operations along with cloud technologies (59%).

Businesses may never return to the old “normal”, according to Broadridge, which leaves firms little choice but to accelerate their digital transformation.

The survey found that 58% of participants plan to increase investment in interactive digital technologies, 54% plan to increase investment in artificial intelligence (AI), 49% plan to improve their ability to quickly gather and analyze data moving forward.
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Almost half of the respondents agree that the pandemic increased the need to mutualize processing functions to reduce costs and increase resiliency, with 54% commercial and investment banks and 49%  broker-dealers agreeing to that idea. Sell-side companies believe this more strongly than buy-side companies (49% and 42%, respectively), and hedge funds were the least likely to agree (36%).

Earlier this year, Broadridge appointed Michael Alexander to the newly created position of President of Wealth Management, reporting directly to Tom Carey, President of Global Technology and Operations. Alexander will take leadership of the Broadridge Wealth Platform, which is at the center of a recently announced sale to UBS. The platform enables wealth managers to drive their business to the next level while mutualizing investments in technology, innovation, and security.

The newly appointed President of Wealth Management will report directly to Tom Carey, President of Global Technology and Operations.