Chief executives are overwhelmingly the driving force behind financial services’ customer-centric transformation, according to delegates at the 2017 Future of Financial Services conference, Sydney.
 

More than two-thirds of delegates (63 per cent) polled during the conference rated their chief executive as their organisation’s leading customer centricity advocate.

The result echoes a wider trend among Australia’s chief executives, revealing a greater consciousness of customer demands and the need to adapt to them. A recent survey by auditor PwC found that 79 per cent of chief executives are concerned about changing consumer behaviour, up from 51 per cent the previous year. This is also significantly higher than their international counterparts rated at 65 per cent.

Other C-level executives fell well short of their corporate chiefs in the FST poll, with just one in five (20 per cent) ranking chief digital officers, and one in 10 (10 per cent) the chief information officer, as the principal driver of the business’s customer-centric transformation.

Customer retention and acquisition, rated by more than half (57 per cent), was deemed the prime motivation for pursuing digital transformation within the organisation. Cost cutting and operational efficiency, despite rating second, was seen as significantly less of a priority for the FSI, with just one in five (20 per cent) delegates rating it as a key motivation.

FST Media’s 2017 Future of Financial Service conference gathered executives and digital thought leaders from across Australia’s financial services industry and numerous complementary sectors. More than 1600 delegates attended the two-day conference – a new attendance record for the event.