Sasfin

A lmost every single organisation is already on a digital transformation journey. How far along this journey they were when the global pandemic hit had a significant impact on how quickly businesses were able to transition to work-from-home models and service their customers through digital channels.

At Sasfin, the fact that we were already well into our digital journey with our BYOND digital banking platform was critical in March 2020. We were able to seamlessly onboard new business banking clients through our digital channels and offer additional digital support to small and mid-sized businesses at a time when they needed it most. These included basic financial tools, invoice generation and tracking and dashboards to keep a close eye on finances. These same tools made it easier for our teams to extend lines of credit during the pandemic as well.

Our journey has been extremely fortuitous. It has also been rich in lessons. From our initial strategising to knowing how and when to pivot, our team continues to leverage the deep insights we have gained over the past few years.

1. Start with your People

Many digital strategies focus on technology and occasionally process as well. In our experience, however, you need to begin with people, and this includes everyone internal and external that is part of the digital journey.

Originally, we worked with service providers who delivered what they could based on their capabilities, instead of our team at Sasfin determining what we wanted to offer our clients, and finding the technology solutions to deliver them.

When we embarked on our new digital strategy, the first thing we did was change our approach. We created an end-to-end problem statement based on our business requirements and we mapped what skills and competencies we would need to deliver the user interface we wanted, from back-end partners to front-end partners. And then we put our team together, including our software development partners, front-end marketing agency support and how our team and our core banking partner connect everything together. Functionality and usability were both paramount.

The lesson is that this all comes down to people. Yes, you need the right technology, but unless the teams you are bringing together understand the full end-to-end picture, they cannot deliver your final vision. Once our partners are on board with what we are aiming to achieve, BYOND started becoming a reality.

2. Know when to Pivot

This was one of the most painful lessons we had to learn, but in hindsight, one of the most fortuitous and ultimately cost-effective, because we chose to pivot quickly.

When we had originally selected the technology, we would use to build our new platform; we thought we had scoped the project correctly. Within six months we discovered that we were wrong. If we stayed on course, we would not be able to use our APIs as they were for the mobile app that we still needed to build.

  ​The key to any digital journey is to start with low hanging fruit, then moving to bigger high friction processes or systems. Planning is imperative, but you can learn from your mistakes if you are building your digital solutions   

We had two choices. First, we could push on and hope to find a solution down the road, rebuilding bit by bit where needed. We had already spent significant funds and wanted to be able to deliver a digital offering. Option two was to bin months of work, accept the loss and start again. This would allow us to have uniform technology across our entire business in the future.

We chose door number two. However, we knew we needed board approval, and so we did what should have been done right at the beginning of the project. As a team we had numerous robust discussions around our technology roadmap and strategy. We had already learnt a lot about how we integrated with our banking provider and the core teams we worked with. We applied these lessons, designed a fail fast, learn fast, fix fast approach, made meticulous fore-castings and budgets, and made the case for the technology. And then we approached the board.

They agreed to pivot. For us, the lesson has always been how quickly we moved. If we had not taken this approach, we would not have had almost four years under our belts with the correct technology when COVID-19 hit. We would have had a bad product built on the wrong technology simply because we didn’t want to start again. We would have thrown good money after bad.

Sometimes, you have to slow down to move fast.

3. Digitalization is an End-to-End Process

One of the reasons why we knew we needed to pivot was the fact that we want to be a digitally-led bank. This means that the entire end-to-end experience should be digital. Our clients will always have the opportunity to pick up a phone and speak to a relationship consultant, but this should be by choice – not necessity.

A great digital experience does not mean you can open an account and onboard yourself digitally and then you enter a manual system that takes much, much longer and is a completely different experience.

We call it technical debt. A process is automated from point A to point B, but then points C, D, E, F and so on remain manual and everyone is frustrated, from the client to the employees responsible for the manual processes.

Our philosophy is to rather do one or two things properly based on deep thinking than ten things on a mediocre level. It costs more to do it right the first time, but it also creates more value. When we say a process is automated, it is completely automated. We can then move on to the next project, process, or platform.

The analogy we use for our team is based on building a plane. First and foremost a plane must fly and so even if it takes off with no paint, or seats, or other bells and whistles, as long as it has two wings and is engineered correctly, you have the base for the perfect plane. You can then add as you go because it flies perfectly. However, if you send it off with only one wing, you end up trying to build the second wing while it’s in flight and the result is failed digital transformation.

4. Strike a Balance between Progress, Cost, and Quality

One of the reasons why so many products are rushed to market is that you have to start earning back what has been spent. The problem is that when you put the budget first, you find ways to save on costs and time. You compromise on quality. You send the airplane up with only one wing and try to get as many passengers on board as possible.

I believe that this should be flipped around. The key metric should be quality, followed by how much time and budget will be required to deliver that quality. From there, the project can be broken up into smaller pieces – do one process well end-to-end for example. You do not need to deliver on the full scope immediately, but you do need to deliver a pristine solution that you can then add to.

5. Ask your Clients what they Need – and then Listen

This is something that we did not do enough of in 2017 at the beginning of our BYOND journey. Once we discovered that our clients were our greatest source of information, we started cultivating relationships with our regular BYOND users and asking them about their user experiences. We discovered that some features had friction points that were easily fixed but we had not previously thought to ask. Today, when a new feature is released, we immediately request user feedback from these valued clients to ensure we have the most frictionless user experience. We also work closely with a user experience team to design the most seamless and intuitive experience as possible.

Pulling it all together

The key to any digital journey is to start with low hanging fruit, then moving to bigger high friction processes or systems. Planning is imperative, but you can learn from your mistakes if you are building your digital solutions. Things won’t always go as planned. One of the most critical things we have learned is to adhere to our fail fast, learn fast, and fix fast approach. Ultimately though, you need to be on the journey to transform your business. It will not happen by itself.