Thank you for visiting StratEx Insights.
This blog is a vehicle for sharing perspectives on the challenges of aligning technology strategy and execution. While much of the content will deal with banking and payments technology, the insights should be relevant in other industries as well.
My perspectives are based on the thirty odd years I have spent in technology ranging from work on the Space Shuttle, to the remote capture and transmission of check images. I have found repeatedly that once you cut through industry specific jargon, the problems are similar. How do you go from what your market wants, to what you can do in a time frame and at a cost you can afford? How do you then keep your customers happy and let a lot of people know about it, so that you can make money by getting many people to to buy what you have, again and again?
Easier said than done- especially when companies grow large and lose sight of these fundamental premises that should drive all action!
I welcome you to share your thoughts as we go forward. I invite you to participate and have fun. I know I will!
Vijay Balakrishnan
President
StratEx LLC
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5 comments:
No doubt consumer adoption is not easy without a clear advantage and ease of use. Consumer adoption by nature will be slow and steady. Gen Yers are targeted for faster adoption. In developing nations, cell phone useage for SMS and other functions was faster than countries where other modes of payment, communication were entrenched. There are other reasons for consumer adoption. Reward points and instant discounts. Like private label credit cards are promoted by big box retailers such as Belks and Khols offering one time discount to apply for their cards, merchants will have to get enough incentive to offer the same to their customers to help adopt new technologies and hence new payment types. No denying the fact the new powerful digital device offers the possibility of one to one interaction between merchants and their customers. Banks do not have much incentive in the new technology if it is going to reduce their total income. Nor are the carriers. Merchants are paying through their noses in transaction cost and customers that use credit beyond the grace period pay their noses. Digital device and a powerful set of applications also offer opportunites for personal financial management applications along with promotion and payment integration. At the end of the day, it is an exiting field... like any other field of innovation, there are winners and losers, early adopters and those that happen to be at the right time with the right approach.
Vijay I look forward to reading your Blog regularly and gain your insights and perspectives. The blog looks very clean, has good tone and should be a great benefit and interest to those in the payment space or technology in general (hmmm, that's a big pond!)
Take care and "Blog On"!
scott aiken | eyeclick media
The entire topic of strategic alignment/execution is a very interesting one. We had a single course on this subject weaved throughout our entire Executive MBA program at Emory University. From a corporate perspective, it is often the difference between success and failure. Most companies do not have functional area objectives that are consistent with their core strategic objectives; hence, the company is often expending scarce resources executing tasks that are not warranted or strategic. There are countless case studies on this topic. Fortunately, there are also tools now available to help companies identify and correct this issue. Vijay, this is a great area to help companies - from executing technology strategy or corporate strategy.
This helps to explain the difficulty of matching some of the non-banks' success in alternative payments, not just by financial institutions but by other well-heeled competitors trying to provide online options. This kind of sober-minded, real-world analysis has the potential to adjust expectations in the resource-allocation process and is a particularly welcome addition to the blogosphere.
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