Why super firms should embrace the cloud – and leave fog behind
In the finance industry, superannuation specialists have been slow to go digital, but the payoff is worth the effort.
Banks, insurers and superannuation firms play a significant role in the community given their influence on people’s financial wellbeing and the economy.
These businesses should be using the latest technology to drive efficiency, but this expectation has not always been matched by reality.
Superannuation firms in particular have been slow adopters of digital technologies. As the rest of the financial services sector accelerates the transformation, it’s vital superannuation firms don’t fall behind.
The cloud is one of the most important and effective technologies available, given the array of benefits it can bring. By using the cloud, financial firms – including those specialising in superannuation – can adapt to the changing market to support future needs as the financial service sector constantly evolves.
On top of this, the cloud can also help mitigate cyber security risks.
First, the cloud enables organisations to significantly reduce manual work with increased automation while optimising workflows. With the cloud, superannuation firms can easily customise their workflow setup, resulting in greater efficiency.
With features like digital process automation on the cloud, superannuation firms can fully transform into digital, data-driven businesses. It enables the automation of repetitive tasks, process orchestration across multiple systems and empowers workers to make data-driven decisions, guiding them through complex tasks.
By maximising such features using the cloud, superannuation firms can prioritise customers during every transaction and offer solutions in a timely manner, enhancing the client experience.
The cloud also offers flexibility and scalability that can benefit superannuation firms. These features allow firms to solve evolving business needs with the changing market in a reliable manner. For example, this tool will enable businesses to quickly and easily allocate resources and monitor that through the system, allowing business leaders to purchase the necessary space needed for heavy duty data.
Again, this improves business efficiency and the time needed to resolve issues. With the flexibility that comes with the cloud, workers are able to work efficiently in their roles because they can retrieve and access data easily, with minimal disruption.
For example, with this tool superannuation experts have easy access to data wherever they are, reducing the time needed to address a customer issue. This delivers a better customer experience as their queries are attended to almost immediately.
In addition, cloud solutions are inherently more secure than traditional on-prem solutions, which is essential for superannuation firms given the sensitive nature of the information they manage.
Data is secured behind a firewall, end-points and networks which add an additional layer of protection. This makes it harder for cyber criminals to hack into the system while also offering the ability to automatically alert IT teams so they can take swift action should any breaches take place.
While moving to the cloud does require a significant monetary investment, it also has the potential to drive long-term savings, specifically through its scalability. Organisations can invest in the cloud infrastructure they need to service their business requirements while having the peace of mind that the infrastructure can scale at a moment’s notice, should the needs of the business change. Firms that have adopted the cloud have found this to be more sustainable and affordable in the long-term.
Given the economic climate, chief information officers are being asked to do more with less and cost savings in this aspect will be beneficial for such firms.
It is important for superannuation firms to keep up with cloud advancements. The benefits the cloud provides will help superannuation firms optimise business efficiency in different ways, resulting in better outcomes and enhanced customer experiences. It also allows these firms to save costs and gradually migrate to the cloud.
However, to ensure cloud benefits are maximised, these firms need to give employees adequate training so that everyone can leverage cloud services at optimal capacity. With an efficient work system and process, superannuation firms will be able to safeguard their consumers’ data and trust.
George Harb is vice president of ANZ OpenText.
