Leveraging Effective Leadership to Drive Innovation and Automation in Finance

David Robertson, Director of Enterprise Architecture - Software Engineering|Applications, Exeter Finance

David Robertson, Director of Enterprise Architecture - Software Engineering|Applications, Exeter Finance

Shaping Innovation and Creating Scalable Solutions

After working in Finance for many years, one starts to notice patterns that emerge when solving problems or delivering business features. How one processes a loan application or provides a great customer experience doesn’t change much, but the technology does. By cataloging those patterns along with an inventory of the things needed to run the business, it becomes easier to plug in automation and right-fit technology that allows businesspeople to work at scale. By utilizing technology to build new systems or modernize existing ones, people’s efforts are amplified when done well, leveraging Domain-Driven Design and similar principles. Those principles converge the business need with the right technology, which is built with their values in mind, pivotal to operational success and long-lived solutions.

Overcoming Challenges with Emerging Technology

Lean Architecture principles tell us that—more often than not—the less we have to maintain, the more cost-effective the system becomes. Occam’s razor suggests that a simple solution is usually the best one. In practice, we should aim to limit our technology footprint to only what is needed to operate the business effectively. That need could be to add a few features to increase revenue or perhaps create a new product line to gain market share. Neither of those will likely require cutting-edge beta technology that is overengineered to scale to 1 billion users and 30 billion in revenue. Instead, use data-driven techniques to create architecture with automated feature delivery that can be extended and scaled up and out later as demand increases. Such a system will require fewer people and man-hours to both create and maintain.

Should you find yourself inheriting a system similar to one already in place, consolidate the former into an existing system wherever possible and let existing people own it going forward. Generative AI has emerged as the headline that we all want to be a part of. However, disguised in that mirage is the need for automation integrated throughout the enterprise. For example, cloud infrastructure provisioning can be automated, similar to how we push updates for systems and deploy new mobile apps. Once that foundation has been laid, one of the benefits is to find the value proposition for using generative AI in the systems you have built.

“Lean Architecture principles tell us that—more often than not—the less we have to maintain, the more cost-effective the system becomes.”

Another option is to buy it: many of the tools we already pay for have some AI component to them. Investigate them according to your organization’s legal and data governance policies and then trial them, settling on the ones that work for you using ROI data. These tend to accelerate the person we already have, which translates into decreased expense or increased operational efficiency.

Aligning Tech Strategies with Business

Most of us find ourselves wandering on the paths of digital transformation and application modernization. Gone are the days when we can build and then let systems run. Instead, they must be groomed and constantly updated to maintain platform support and increase security posture. There must be people whose focus is to stay in sync with the technology landscape.

Where new technology enables us, customer experience plays a role in driving system improvements and adding features that did not exist in prior years. Customers will change along with the technology at their fingertips, and we must too.

Regardless of the agent for change, we must emphasize the importance of test automation, which allows us to implement new system behavior without compromising existing ones. The more we have, the faster we can adapt to change, which translates into an agile business —one that can run with the market ups and downs without much internal friction. Once a significant level of tests is automated, existing systems can be upgraded and new ones built with modern technology that attracts both customers and employees.

Technology Leadership Insights in Finance

It’s always helpful to have good people, both on the business side and IT. Find those people, invest in them, and then let them drive your story of success and innovation. The people who are closest to the work will often have some of the best answers and can provide leadership with the information to make wise strategic decisions. Respect them, give them responsibility, ensure healthy relationships between departments and teams and then enable those people and teams to produce results. With those things in place, it is far easier to take on new technology and embark on digital transformation.