Clearing the Digital BLUR

Note for New Joiners at IDFC First Bank

Observe what’s happening around you!

• Many traditional companies which existed earlier are now extinct. Do you
know what's common between them?
• Banks are investing in tech and tech players are getting involved in money
matters. Have you thought what are the boundaries for companies now?
• Business is going digital for some firms and digital is the business for
many new large firms!
• Things that existed in physical form only are getting digitized quickly. Eg
books, money, etc.
• There is something common between all these trends! Read on to know
more!

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Based on the research by Rajiv Jayaraman and KNOLSKAPE…

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 … there is an interesting way to look at Digital Transformation

In order to adapt to the pace of change in the digital world and for organizations to continue remaining relevant
and successful, it is important for organizations and leaders to understand and reimagine the extent of the
disruption technology will bring in and the impact on organization capability, culture and strategy due to the
digital disruptions.
Look at Digital Revolution as a scenario where there is Blurring of all boundaries which are existing in the
traditional industries. We call it the Digital BLURTM.

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 Activity: Watch the
video to understand
this better
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbI_pf
4bMwo&feature=youtu.be

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 Staying Relevant in the Age of Disruption

HOW CAN WE STAY RELEVANT?

Source: Acxiom © November 2019 The Financial Brand

 Priorities for Banks

1. Platform and Ecosystem 2. Digitalization

Diverse banking ecosystem Leveraging new technologies like AR,
is the key. AI, Robotics, etc. to unlock new value

4. Agility
3. Talent Alignment
Organizational agility is a
Continuous alignment of
competitive edge
new and existing employees

6. Analytics
5. Customer Centricity Data driven decision making and
New dimensions of Customer Centricity and leveraging internal customer data for
customer connect have evolved unlocking more value

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 These priorities align with the key business enablers required for building a
Truly World-class Bank
Platforms

1. Platform and Ecosystem 2. Digitalization

People Gaining competitive advantage & becoming Products

World-class Bank
Capability
5. Customer Centricity
3. Talent Alignment

4. Agility 6. Analytics

Processes

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We are focussing on connecting all the key Business Enablers
Platforms

1. Platform and 2. Digitalization

Ecosystem

People Gaining competitive advantage & becoming Products

World-class Bank
Capability
5. Customer
3. Talent
Centricity
Alignment
4. Agility 6. Analytics

Processes

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 Key Concepts
Clearing the Digital BLUR by Rajiv Jayaraman
What is Digital?
• Digital is a way of working that leverages technology to accomplish three main purposes:
• Create stellar customer experience
• Make processes agile
• Unlock new, exponential value by leveraging data

• In organizational context, digital has become all-pervading and all-encompassing. Going beyond
business and IT, everyone in the organization needs to know about the rules of the new game

• Digital brings a fundamental shift in the mindsets, skillset and toolsets of all employees.

• Its imperative that digital gets baked into the core DNA going forward.

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B for Boundaryless Organizations
• Lines defining an organization are blurring away. Think about Uber. Uber does not own cars. Is
uber a logistics firm or a software firm?
• In the digital age, the lines separating internal and external sources of value creating for an
organization are fast blurring away.
• Same is happening with Banking as well. Many banking players are aspiring to be lifestyle
partners for consumers.
• From a business model perspective, organizations are becoming lean in their core operations
while expanding their influence in adjacent areas through an ecosystem play.
• Take Apple for example. It has drastically reduced its own internal inputs in its hardware devices
and at the same time unlocked terrific value through its widely successful Apps Store where it
gets revenues made by apps it does not produce.
• Look at the boundaries from three lens: Internal, External, Geographical
• Activity: What are the other boundaries you see around you which are blurring away? Which
organizations are leveraging this principle to grow exponentially?

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L for Limitless Digitization
• Its no longer possible to think of the physical and digital as two different things.
• Practically every object in the physical worlds can have an existence in the digital world as well in
form of a digital twin
• Today, everything can be “plugged in”
• We are witnessing massive explosion in data- primarily driven by the Internet of Humans and
Internet of Things
• Connected devises are growing at an exponential pace resulting in massive amounts of data
production
• Data can be the new oil if we can analyse it to gain insights
• Many new business models and customer experiences are developed by analysing data
• Activity: Reflect what skills you need to develop to drive data enabled decision making for
yourself going forward? How will you manage the human-machine confluence ?

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U for Unbounded Innovation
• Today, companies are going beyond conventional boundaries of their industries and producing
in ovations in uncontested spaces with the objective of delighting the customer
• Thanks to these changes, the narrative has changed from going to a bank to doing banking
• Have you heard of how blocking is disrupting the way banking and insurance is done?
• Unbounded innovations are blurring away industry lines
• Digital born organizations are bundling and unbundling industries and attaching pockets of
value
• Incumbents are mainly looking inwards, playing defence while disruptors are expanding at the
periphery, playing offense
• Organizations are increasingly embracing open innovation to spur growth beyond their
traditional domains
• Activity: Reflect what are you going to do to develop an innovative mindset? Machines are
learning. Are you learning enough?

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Looking for the next big Idea in Banking? Construct the
Empathy Map like this for your customer!
R for Relentless Iteration
• In the digital age, there is no state of doneness. Everything is constantly arriving and constantly
becoming
• Agility can be achieved at four levels: Agile customers, agile functions, agile organizations, agile
strategy
• According to Stephen Deming, Agile uses three core principles:
• Law of small numbers
• Law of the customer
• Law of the network
• Agility helps in pursuing incremental innovation.
• Have your heard of Moore’s law? Probably same principle is applicable to business models now.
Companies need to revisit their business models every 18 months.
• Activity: Reflect on how current Covid-19 scenario has impacted banks with large branch
network? What can they do differently now?

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Example of Agility in Current Scenario

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Examples of possible disruptions

* Some of them have been successful and some initiatives have been rolled back by Amazon.
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The BLUR Framework For Banking

Lifestyle partner Rapid product /

API economy positioning service
Platform
thinking RPA for Product development
automation innovation
Collaborating
through
with Fintechs Monetizing data Responsiveness
Customer
journey maps

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What you can do about this?
Digital BLUR is a real phenomenon impacting many organizations and industries. It is triggered by
various trends such as connected customers, smart technologies, VUCA environment, great
bundling and unbundling of industries and emergence of a new breed of competitors. While
technologies may change in times to come, but this reality may remain the same. To stay relevant
and lead this change, :
• Keep yourself updated about new technologies, trends, etc.
• Check your digital fitness consistently
• Keep a tab on advances in the field of Blockchain, IOT, AI, SMAC, e-commerce, etc
• Think and act in a boundaryless fashion
• Make customer experience the core of your decision making process
• Embrace agile ways of working
• Learn to manage the now, new and the next simultaneously

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“To become good at anything you have to know how to apply basic
principles. To become great at it, you have to know when to violate those
principles.”
― Garry Kasparov, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends
and Human Creativity Begins

https://www.ted.com/talks/garry_kasparov_don_t_fear_inte
lligent_machines_work_with_them/transcript?language=en

Keep learning and sharing!

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