If a picture paints a thousand words, then a great visualisation paints a thousand numbers.

Come September and the conference season descends upon us. Despite living in the digital age, there is no substitute for a quality face-to-face event, to get up-to-speed with the latest innovation.

Bookmakers always win. They may experience the occasional bad day, but over a period of time they always win. Why? This is primarily because they study form. They analyse as much data as they can absorb, applying hypotheses to test possible outcomes (whether mentally or with the aid of computers), setting prices and refining continuously based on further events and patterns. Basically, they calculate the most likely outcomes based on statistics and other insights, and then set the odds in their favour. They also study their levels of exposure and risk, taking appropriate steps to offset potential losses, to ensure that they nearly always make a profit.

Disastrous! That’s how digital transformation initiatives in the banking and financial services sector turn out when delivered without deep customer insight. Customer loyalty is now a fleeting memory confined mainly to pre-millennials. Yet, digital transformation is driving less and less direct human interaction between the customer and the institution.

“In the absence of advanced business intelligence and rich customer data, banks develop and deliver digital banking transformation initiatives in the dark.”

This was a moment of truth statement made by the CIO of a retail bank during our discussion on business transformation in the banking sector. Yet, many line of business managers shudder at the very thought of data warehousing. Blame it on unfinished, monolithic technology programmes that failed to keep up with business change and delivered poor value. These were issues faced way before the onset of the digital age with its even greater demand for responsiveness and agility.