Despite the slow adoption of cloud computing by the banking and financial services industry with security and reliability being the major concerns, financial institutions are quickly resorting to cloud-based services to achieve increased agility and lowered total cost of ownership (TCO). According to IDC, worldwide revenue from public IT cloud services exceeded $21.5 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach $72.9 billion in 2015. There is an emerging trend in which financial institutions are embracing “cloud solutions” as not just a ‘me-too’ option, but as solutions that yield competitive advantage due to shorter cycles of time to market for products and services. (more…)

Financial services firms globally are investing strategically in enterprise mobile financial service solutions to deliver more mobile-based banking services and reduce the overall cost of operations. According to a recent survey by KPMG, mobile banking has already reached critical mass with 33% of US consumers conducting banking transactions over their mobile devices. This number is expected to significantly increase based on several trends. First of all, more consumers are becoming comfortable with the security of executing mobile transactions. Second is the continued penetration of smart phones and third is the rapid emergence of tablets as both a mobile device and in many circumstances, a replacement for standard desktops/laptops. (more…)

Last week I had the pleasure of hosting a webinar with Jeffrey Hammond, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research and Rohit Sharma, Global Head of Mobility at Virtusa.  The topic was “Overcoming Challenges in Early Stage Enterprise Mobility Programs”.  This post is a short synopsis of the webinar.  For those who were not able to attend the session, you can view it here.

The webinar started with Jeffrey Hammond reflecting back to the early 1980’s with the introduction of the personal computer.  He offered his observation that many IT organizations are reacting to mobile devices and smartphones today in the same way IT organizations greeted the PC; with skepticism and doubt.  Today, the personal computer is a dominant platform for computing power, a major productivity tool and a huge segment of the technical market.  Hammond predicted that mobile computing will exceed the personal computer many times over. (more…)

Depending on who you read, we are in the fourth or fifth wave of computer technology development.  In 2005, Om Malik and Michael Copeland published The Fifth Wave in Business 2.0 Magazine.  They defined their waves as the eras of mainframe, mid-range, PC, Internet and networked computing. Written six years ago, their premonition preceded smartphones by many years.

In 2009, Forrester Research VP Andrew Bartels cited US Department of Commerce data showing that we are in the fourth wave of technology investment.  Specifically, the four waves are:

• 1951 – 1976: Mainframe computing
• 1976 – 1992: PC computing
• 1992 – 2008: Network computing
• 2008 – 2016: Accelerated innovation

Each of the waves experiences two phases – innovation and growth followed by refinement and digestion.  The current phase of accelerated innovation is in the innovation and growth phase, coinciding with the global economic recovery cycle.  Bartels substantiates his position by analyzing the US IT investment to GDP ratio CAGR for each phase.  The average ratio for the growth eras is 4% while the average for the refinement eras is -1.13%. (more…)

Over the past year, few technology developments have challenged IT staffs more than the mobility wave.  Two years ago it was the social phenomenon.  Now it’s mobile computing.  Virtusa’s BFS business unit has seen a surge in the number of inquiries regarding mobile.  And now, the questions are not about “if”, they are about “how”.  Here is a familiar scenario.

You’re a product manager in a major financial or commercial company and you have just gotten the assignment of launching a mobile version of your product. You’re thrilled but you’re terrified. Your mind is racing. Where do you start? Pour yourself an herb tea or some other relaxing drink, realize that it will not be easy, and start planning. Even the organizations that appear as though they are miles ahead of you have probably only “mobilized” a small subset of their potential offerings. A major bank, for example, may be offering some exciting consumer goodies but, if you knew the mobile product team, they would tell you they have barely scratched the surface. The same bank’s B2B offerings are probably still on the drawing board at best. (more…)