Moving into Action

The biggest hurdle for financial services companies is to determine which are the opportunities to capitalize on and which are those to ignore. A mistake repeated many times by firms is to attempt to be all things to all people. The central lesson to be learned is first to define how the firm will add value and then to develop a vision and strategy to bring the firm’s offerings to market. What is clear is an apparent shift in what financial services organizations need to deliver to each type of eMarketplace, and how they will participate as an aggregator of services or proceed slowly and become a commodity offering within the realm of content providers. The emerging eMarketplaces provide an enormous range of opportunities for financial services organizations to reach out into new areas of fee income and transaction-based revenues. These opportunities require a clear value proposition in a rapidly changing, competitive market to establish both market credibility and quality of service. Developing an action agenda for competing in an eMarketplace should contain the elements that span a host of business, technology and organizational issues. The fundamental elements in an action agenda should include: Know your value added and how it complements the market it serves; Create mechanisms for market sensing; Rebrand products to reflect your identity; Build capabilities for rapid market reaction; Develop competencies in CRM; Leverage technology to facilitate transactions; Get good at managing partner and affiliate relationships; Change offerings and approaches as the markets mature and evolve; Develop relationships with technology and services providers.