Thinking Digital: A Point We Sometimes Miss

Over the past two years a great deal of my work has focused on fintech. At Investor Economics we spend a lot of time trying to fit the burgeoning industry into the financial services world as we know it. We aim to explain new fintech concepts and firms to many of our clients in order to shape how they think when formulating their strategic plans.

Recently, I spoke at a conference doing just that for a group of senior leaders from the insurance delivery and distribution world. Prior to the presentation when creating the slides, I realized how carried away we have gotten with a very small but exciting part of the industry. By no means does this means that we should belittle its enormous potential but rather it is important to take a step back and understand the larger theme of the digitization of business.

Similar to other industries when better materials and processes are found we rebuild cars, houses and structures. Digitization gives us the new materials and resources to rebuild existing businesses. I would argue that fintech is not here to replace but rather whole rebuild and open new markets that we didn’t even know where there. These tools are also not sole property of startups or Silicon Valley titans but rather are open to all industry players. This is the very exciting part of the changes we are seeing. Just like the Uber’s, AirBnB’s and Spotify’s of the world fulfilled needs in new ways creating new markets in the process, fintech firms are sure to do the same in the medium term. McKinsey wrote a fantastic article about it entitled “The Economic Essential of Digital Strategy”. For anyone interested in what digital means for business I highly recommend it as a starting spot. Below you’ll also find a much shorter version on my last presentation.