Axway & Finextra Research: Seeking operational intelligence

UPDATED 11/9/18

Operational Intelligence has the potential to deliver a wealth of business benefits to organizations. This includes providing real-time insight into their business-critical processes. With emerging technologies, companies need a strategy to ensure they’re getting the most out of what operational intelligence offers.

So how can organizations achieve this? In 2015, we released results from a study we conducted with Finextra Research. This focused on how financial organizations are utilizing operational intelligence for payments. The results were telling. The study found that there is increased pressure on IT to support instant decision making to enhance the customer experience, increase profitability and improve performance.

Survey says

The study surveyed 105 decision makers in the global financial services industry, and the results highlighted the various banks’ priorities in their payments business, the challenges they face in their operations and their current use of operational intelligence tools to deliver real-time business analytics and decision support.

While evaluating the key responsibilities of COOs, strategic planning executives and global payments managers, the study found that 55 percent of respondents believe customer service improvement is the top business priority. This is followed by increasing profit (26 percent) and improving performance (19 percent).

Out of the 105 respondents, 77 percent stated that they process immediate payments of one kind or another, while 58 percent stated they are expected to make immediate operational decisions daily. And 90 percent stated that their bank is directly connected to a payment-processing platform.

The study also revealed the below items as challenges companies are faced with:

• Prevalence of immediate payment processing
• Large payment transaction volumes
• Prioritization of improved customer service
• The necessity for immediate operational decisions
• The desire to reduce operational risk
• Growing security concerns

The results concluded that the most pressing issues faced by most financial institutions are delivering business analytics and making decisions in real-time. However, by implementing operational intelligence technologies, organizations will be able to govern the flow of data across multiple channels in order to embrace new digital business models.