Banks and financial services firms are seeing the emergence of a new consumption model in which financial services providers are expected to manage customer interactions, aggregate services/products from ecosystem players, and offer differentiated experiences across preferred channels. While banking will remain relevant, banks as we know them today may not. The omnipresence of technology, new business models, and a globally-connected ecosystem require banks to evolve from the current banking-as-a-product mindset to a banking-as-a-lifestyle approach.

As banks start to offer experiences, they need to collaborate and combine offerings from financial services and allied industries that are assured for customers under their brand. This will expand the role of Quality Assurance (QA) in banking and financial services from a traditional inside-out monolithic view to that of an ecosystem quality orchestrator in the future.

The traditional QA function in the banking and financial services industry has been characterized by value-drivers based on scale-driven service models and a tightly-bound technology stack.For financial services providers to operate in an enhanced ecosystem, the QA function will have to embrace a new set of value-drivers based on:

• Links with business outcomes
• An end-to-end customer experiences
• Speed-to-value for digital business processes
• Cross-functional talent
• The ability to rapidly assemble and disassemble technology building blocks in an agnostic manner

The reimagined QA function will need to enable a strong governance mechanism to enforce accountability in a shared environment, with incentives aligned to guarantee business outcomes.

For the QA function of the of future to be business outcome-aligned it needs to transition from a monolithic model to an orchestrated QA organization model.

In this report, we explore the nuances of the ingredients needed to build this future model of QA with the help of a set of illustrative use cases within the BFS industry, we:

• Examine the changing nature of key strategic imperatives for enterprise QA
• Define the heterogenous QA environment of resources that are internal, shared, or external to the BFS organization
• Identify the key challenges in moving from the current homogenous environment of standardized and centralized QA operations to scaling the orchestration of a heterogenous environment
• Identify the role of a platform strategy for QA orchestration
• Establish a vision for a new enterprise QA model that aligns with the future role of banking and financial services firm

Membership(s)

Banking & Financial Services (BFS) - IT Services (ITS)