The State of Digital Transformation Across London’s and Europe’s Most Established Businesses

London is a global powerhouse for business. But as anyone who’s tried to do business in the city knows, it’s a competitive landscape. To stay ahead of the curve, many businesses in London are turning to digital transformation.

A digital transformation report by Contino provides insights into how some of London’s most established businesses are embracing digital transformation.

The report comprised of top CIOs and senior IT decision-makers from some of London’s most prominent businesses found that digital transformation is critical to every organisation’s future success.

Lloyds Banking Group

Matt Davis, Head of Cloud Engineering (at the time of the report), said: “It’s not just about building the technologies, but about building systems that engineers want to use and can scale as the transformation journey progresses.”

He proved the value of fully cloud-native solutions at a major retail bank. He suggested that to successfully transform your business, give your experts space to work on fully cloud-native solutions that can be quickly adapted and scaled.

This is something that Lloyds Banking Group has done with great success. The bank has embarked on a multi-year digital transformation journey, moving away from its traditional on-premise IT infrastructure to a fully cloud-native platform.

This has allowed the bank to rapidly develop and deploy new features and services at a fraction of the cost of its traditional IT infrastructure.

Lloyds now has a highly secure and more robust digital capability, enabling engineers to release new code in just 15 minutes, whereas previously, it took over a month.

For example, the bank used the platform to build a scalable chatbot that has served millions of customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing pressure on call centres.

One of the key findings from the report is that you need to take your security team with you on your digital transformation journey.

This is something that Lloyds Banking Group has done successfully by working closely with its security team to ensure that its cloud-native platform meets all relevant security standards.

The report also found that it’s essential to pick your battles regarding digital transformation. Don’t try to do everything at once; start by focusing on the areas of your business that are most in need of change.

Refinitiv Labs

Geoffrey Horrell, Head of Refinitiv Labs EMEA (at the time of the report), shares his thoughts on digital transformation in London’s established businesses.

“People want the MVP to be as real as possible; seeing a prototype brings an idea to life for customers, who in turn give us honest and insightful feedback”.

Horrell believes that the key to a successful digital transformation is leading by example with relentless customer focus to transform financial services and other industries.

He also believes that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital transformation and that it’s critical for businesses to delight the end-user with innovation that is contextual to their needs.

In order to ensure a successful digital transformation, businesses need to hire flexible and adaptable people, focus on customer feedback, and be prepared to pivot when necessary.

The outcome is that Refinitiv Labs not only provides data products that enable weeks of high-value data science work to be done in seconds.

The close partnerships they develop with clients are a conduit for showing them how to transform themselves digitally.

Investec

Anant Patel, Head of Market Risk (at the time of the report), believes that defragmenting and unifying across people, processes, and technology is the key to success in digital transformation.

“When you are in the most competitive industry in the most competitive location for that industry on the planet, you need to be nimble.”

Patel also believes that it’s essential to bring your people on the journey collectively, as it’s critical for them to be on the same page when it comes to change.

He suggests that integration is non-negotiable for digital transformation and that businesses need to be willing to let go of legacy systems to move forward. He also reiterates why it is essential to be smart with customer-centricity, as this will allow businesses to be agile and intimate with their users.

The fruits of this transformation were reflected in Investec’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The entire company was able to transition seamlessly to remote working overnight.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is pivotal for businesses in London to stay ahead of the competition. Businesses can successfully navigate the ever-changing landscape by focusing on customer feedback, being willing to pivot when necessary, and hiring flexible and adaptable people.