Unlocking the Potential of Digital Banking Transformation

Jim Marous (00:12):

Hello, and welcome to Banking Transformed, the top podcast in retail banking. I'm your host, Jim Marous, Owner and CEO of the Digital Banking Report, and co-publisher of The Financial Brand.

Jim Marous (00:21):

To thrive in the new digital banking environment, financial institutions need to re-articulate their value proposition simultaneously, simplifying and upgrading back-office processes and the customer experience while creating value through data and analytics.

Jim Marous (00:39):

To deliver a market-leading value proposition, financial institutions need to work like a tech company with leadership, embracing change, and acting promptly to take advantage of market opportunities that provide differentiation.

Jim Marous (00:53):

We are fortunate to have Doug Brown, President of NCR Digital Banking, and Doug Peacock, Senior Vice President of Digital Delivery at Associated Bank on the Banking Transformed Podcast. They will discuss what is required to digitally transform a mid-asset bank, and how to prioritize during times of economic uncertainty.

Jim Marous (01:14):

Today's retail banking marketplace is vastly different from the old environment where the traditional model of universal banking was economically sound. In this new world, winning banks will be those that carefully choose the businesses where they can lead and commit to building a strong value proposition, use core technologies and operating models that are fit to win on the digital banking battlefield.

Jim Marous (01:39):

So, we have an interesting scenario today in that we have two Dougs on the podcast. This has never happened where we've had two people have the same name. So, I'm going to do my best for those listening to know who we're speaking to.

Jim Marous (01:51):

So, Doug Peacock from Associated Bank, can you provide a brief overview of your role at Associated Bank as well as where Associated Bank is in the digital banking transformation process right now?

Doug Peacock (02:04):

Sure, happy to, Jim, and thank you for having me today. It's a pleasure to join you. So, my role at Associated is the Head of Digital Delivery for our consumer and business bank. And what that means is my team looks after the digital banking experience, the digital sales experience, but also our voice and interactive as well as now, our branch experience for the aforementioned consumer and business bank.

Doug Peacock (02:31):

So, we really look across distribution points and ultimately, are delivering the technology for our customers. We also have a design and innovation practice as well as a real focus on change management because we know that when you build something and you launch it, it's really important the way you introduce that to your customers and your colleagues. So, it's an exciting time at the bank.

Doug Peacock (02:55):

And we're certainly not at halftime yet of our digital transformation, but we've run some really good plays. We've launched some new solutions that have really made our customers and colleagues happy, and are really now starting to build on some of the platform investments we've made specifically in banking and sales with a lot more to come.

Jim Marous (03:16):

You know, on that same subject, you've gone through a recent digital banking conversion. When you're picking partners, when you're determining who to play with, who to work with to move forward, what does that process look like? And ultimately, how did you arrive where you are today?

Doug Peacock (03:36):

Sure. So, long gone are the days of 150 to 200 row Excel spreadsheets with RFIs at least at Associated. What we do is we really look at what is the solution first, what are we trying to solve for our customers and call it many things — North Star guiding principles. But where do you want to end up is where we begin, and what are some of the things that you want to accomplish both from a customer experience, a technology, and certainly, a business perspective.

Doug Peacock (04:07):

We're a for-profit company, and you have to think about what are the investments, and what are the expected returns. So, when you get that sorted out and you understand typically what technology solutions you either need to change or invest in, then you can begin the process of evaluating the market.

Doug Peacock (04:24):

And we host immersion days here at the bank where we'll bring — it's a little bit like a bake-off. We'll bring providers that fit that mold of our North Star in for two to three-hour sessions. It's typically, we look at live software, we're not really looking at a lot of what I like to call brochureware PowerPoints.

Doug Peacock (04:45):

We'll look at live software, we'll try to identify what's real, what's on a roadmap. And when you stack those companies sort of one after another in a tight timeframe, it really helps you do a comparison and really get to meaningful results rather than, again, populating a spreadsheet, coming up with some kind of scoring system, and coming back to it. And it's been very, very successful for us so far.

Jim Marous (05:10):

So, it's interesting this, Doug Brown, now; when NCR partners with a financial institution, we'd like to think that as a partner, you take on all people that want to work with you. However, in the process, you are also evaluating who you want to partner with. What do you look for in a partner from a financial institution to know that you're going to see success at the end?

Doug Brown (05:37):

Yeah, thanks, Jim. We're looking for two primary things. We're looking for commitment or partnership equivalency. I need somebody who's going to step up with us, Jim, or we will not be successful. So, as Doug talked about, we are on trial or being interviewed, we're also doing the same thing across the table because we need a counterparty who's going to going to want to do this and do it right.

Doug Brown (05:58):

They've got to commit equally to it as we do in order to succeed, number one. And number two, is we do look for people who have ambition, vision, and strategy. Associated is a great example of that, as many others of our customers. But we do look for somebody who's looking to make change, make it real and drive real results. Otherwise, Jim, it's a hobby and we are not interested in doing hobbies. We want to really help bring change.

Jim Marous (06:23):

Well, it's interesting because there really isn't enough time in the day. One thing that we've seen when we've interviewed financial institutions and solution providers is that there's just not enough time to hold hands the entire way because you almost have to hand it off and say, "You got to run that down the field on my behalf to be successful."

Jim Marous (06:45):

So, at NCR, Doug, how do you determine where financial institution really is and what their immediate priorities should be? Because again, we talked about it before the podcast started, that we talk a good talk, but do we walk the walk? So, how do you assess where an organization is and what they should prioritize?

Doug Brown (07:08):

For us, Jim, we run a two-level assessment. One is you do a technology assessment, existing platform requirement review, and I think that's the standard stack piece of it. That's still important foundationally. And at the same time, we assess the organizational competency and capabilities of our partners, and we tell them in no uncertain terms, that you're going to need to make a change here. You're going to need to make an improvement.

Doug Brown (07:29):

You either do it or we can help you do it, but someone's going to have to do this or we're not going to succeed. I think Doug P. can elaborate more, but I will tell you, Jim, we're just very deliberate that we have high expectations on ourselves and of the partners. So, we do both organization or competency assessment as well as technology.

Jim Marous (07:48):

So, Doug Peacock, at Associated Bank, what benefits does a third-party collaboration have to bring to make it successful? I mean, what do you see how that partnership actually works as you go forward?

Doug Peacock (08:04):

Yeah, it's very cliche, but I think it's accurate where it's the one plus one has to equal something greater than two, and it has to be we're achieving either unique benefits that whether it's competitively, it's delivering an experience, there certainly is an operational efficiency component sometimes as we look at partnerships, can we consolidate and simplify our technology stack or offering for customers.

Doug Peacock (08:33):

But we really rarely do like for like, kind of work anymore. That is a recipe for standing still fast. And we are always looking at what can we do with a partner that's going to allow us to do more, maybe stop doing some things, that frankly, aren't valuable. And that's an important part of our strategy, is what can we stop doing?

Doug Peacock (08:53):

But increasingly, as we looked at NCR, and we evaluated this, we realized that as we build our infrastructure, we built our cloud services, if you will, it was going to enable us to do things that we really hadn't even thought about doing as a bank before.

Doug Peacock (09:09):

And we're starting to see that now as we consider our business plans in the future for digital and frankly, some of the collaboration we're doing with our product and our marketing and various teams around the bank. It's pretty exciting.

Jim Marous (09:23):

So, speaking of collaboration, what is the scope of your relationship with NCR right now? What are they helping you achieve, and how far along that process have you come?

Doug Peacock (09:34):

So, we've got a long relationship with NCR at the bank. Really not surprisingly, in our ATM space, and have been great partners again, for a long time in that channel, which is frankly, something our customers have responded very positively to.

Doug Peacock (09:50):

As we look now at where we're going to continue to invest with NCR from a digital side, we're already seeing the fruits of the investment. Our digital users are more active than they've ever been before with the new solution. So, we implemented a new digital banking platform in the fall, and we're seeing a material increase in the amount of engagement our customers are having, the way they're feeling about our service.

Doug Peacock (10:17):

Customer experience is vital, and the interpretation of the customer experience is vital to our success. But since that release in the fall, we've already published five, may even be six updates to the software, really on our own with some help from NCR, which is really unique.

Doug Peacock (10:35):

And so, unlike before where we had some landlock technology solutions, we're really able to sort of choose the path we want. And as we looked at our roadmap, it was exciting to meet with business partners and collaborate knowing the technology was there, that it was stable, that it could support what we wanted to do to generate ROI to the business.

Doug Peacock (10:57):

And that's through new products, services, and different things that we'll be rolling out this year. So, without the digital platform, it would not have been frankly possible or economical to do some of the things we're doing now.

Jim Marous (11:12):

So, that's interesting, Doug, from Associated Bank. You're actually doing iterative innovations at a much faster speed than was done before. When you're talking about selling that internally, how do you get that speed of innovation going with the different people within your organization where that really hasn't been the case before?

Doug Peacock (11:36):

Yeah, so as part of our re-platforming, like many companies, we were on an agile journey from legacy software development. And that was maybe harder than we thought it was going to be, but because it's educating business partners like you're suggesting Jim, on what that means.

Doug Peacock (11:53):

And what we're doing now is when we sit down with our business partners and we take their ideas and we actually are doing design sprints and we're coming back in a matter of days, if not a week or two with an actual rendering and sitting across from each other and discussing this, and then implementing it in a short order, incrementally, they're seeing what we're doing, and they're showing it off to their peers, if you will, around the executive table or whatever it means, and that's exciting.

Doug Peacock (12:22):

We spend a lot of time with our executive leadership team who are huge advocates, and you really need to have that — showing software, and demonstrating work that we're doing. And it gets kind of the collective buy-in when you keep delivering iterative wins and the company really gets that momentum and it's hard to slow down, which is exciting.

Jim Marous (12:44):

So, Doug Brown, I'm going to take this a little different direction in that when you are working with financial institutions, you're opening the door to new ideas on digital banking transformation. Every one of these organizations already have a core provider.

Jim Marous (13:00):

How do you work to justify the, what I call, additional investment, incremental investment above what they're spending on core providers to move forward with your organization as they look at digital banking transformation?

Doug Brown (13:18):

It gets down to enabling the performance indicators and metrics that Doug P's bank has enjoyed. And that gets back to how are we going to bring real change into this, and understanding that. And so, it's got to deliver. If it doesn't deliver, again, it's nothing. We're not interested in nothing burgers.

Doug Brown (13:36):

So, we're all about like, how are we going to make it happen? And to make that happen, Jim, too, to just tie it to your prior point for a minute, I will call out Associated as an exceptional bank where the CEO was involved in sprint reviews on UX, and he had material input as we were doing it.

Doug Brown (13:51):

And as opposed to some of our banks, Jim, they give us the ... we're talking about legacy institutions and culture thinking where hey, let's do one ceremonial review with the CEO at the end of the project and he's going to give it a "Yeah, that's great" and not be there.

Doug Brown (14:06):

But this bank and others like it who really succeed at this, you got to be in it all the way. And I think that's what makes a big difference. And then we land at building something that is going to meet the mark both strategically at the customer level and achieving what we're talking about here, whether it's digital sales or digital service.

Jim Marous (14:25):

It's interesting because we interview a lot of organizations and a lot of solution providers, and it usually does come down to culture. If it's from the top-down that everybody is really bought into the process of change, it really does make a huge difference.

Jim Marous (14:39):

Unfortunately, sometimes, you don't know it's not there until you realize it's not there. But it does speed up the overall process and Associated, you're right, is a great example of an organization that has really embraced the ability to continually innovate and differentiate in the marketplace.

Jim Marous (14:59):

It's interesting also, Doug Brown, from NCR — how do you work in prioritizing what comes first as you talk about this change? It's bigger than a bread box. It's really hard to move digital transformation forward at scale. How do you prioritize?

Doug Brown (15:19):

A big part of it, Jim, is we got to listen first. Like whatever the institution's end game is, what are they after? And then we have to configure ourselves. And by the way, Jim, a lot of times, we're not going to have exactly what they want and we know that.

Doug Brown (15:31):

So, we go into this in a partnership model. If we're going to have to stand on my shoulders (even though I'm the short Doug) and get it done and platform ourselves where we're agile and responding to how we're going to go at it together.

Doug Brown (15:44):

So, don't come in with a pre-subscribed notion of, I've got the answer, trust me. I don't believe that works. The model's got to be, "We're listening, we tailored what we're doing, and then we set up the plan about what it's going to take to do it."

Doug Brown (15:57):

And as we do that, there's the other part too of when you do have that executive engagement, that's not always a bed of roses either. Be ready for disruption, change, changing timelines, but you got to have the guts to make the call. And that's where we love partners like Associated who had the guts to make the call, make the change. And we think that's how we together land in the better place.

Jim Marous (16:18):

So, Doug Peacock, our research at the Digital Banking Report indicates that while consumers are not really closing accounts at financial institutions, they are greatly diversifying who they work with. So, we're seeing this silent attrition. How have you worked to make your digital banking delivery different in a way to minimize what is in effect, silent attrition?

Doug Peacock (16:46):

This is really probably one of the hidden or maybe yet to be revealed about benefits of our modernization. And that is the opportunity we have to take the data about our customers. We understand and we've got some really exciting work that's being done with specific customer segments. Like our mass affluent segment that we rolled out, a special offering and digital experience in the late fourth quarter.

Doug Peacock (17:14):

But also, other market segments, including the under 40 segment, which I think most agree is the most transient in terms of their financial relationships. For a lot of good reasons, frankly, it's actually good. It may not always be financially healthy for them, but it's good for us because it keeps us sharp and it makes us consider what's happening in real time in the marketplace.

Doug Peacock (17:39):

And so, from a data perspective, that's really where it starts and ends. Understanding the data, knowing your customer, but then the execution on the digital front end is really one of the main reasons we went to the platform that we did.

Doug Peacock (17:54):

And it's something that if you were to look at our forward roadmap where we're making the bets that we're making, it comes down to personalized financial experiences, insights, and then delivering unique value proposition based upon the mutual benefit that we hope to have with our customers.

Doug Peacock (18:12):

Certainly, as customers do business with us, we want to give them more benefits and we want to give them more benefits based on the life stage they're in. And that's what's really exciting for us. We won't keep everybody, but we think it's a pretty compelling opportunity for us.

Jim Marous (18:29):

Well, it's interesting because our research also finds that it's hard to acquire customers in a digital banking environment because a lot of us, we talk about the enablement of digital banking for acquiring customers and opening new accounts, but we really don't do it in a digital way.

Jim Marous (18:45):

At Associated Bank, how have you improved the account opening or relationship establishment process as well as onboarding to make it so that you can better acquire customers in a new digital world?

Doug Peacock (18:58):

This is this was a fast follower, a new platform for digital sales, was a fast follower to our digital banking. And again, we surveyed the market, we selected a solution provided by NCR. And I can tell you there's been no finer example of a software implementation that I've seen in my experience than what we had with the digital sales solution, and the results bear that out.

Doug Peacock (19:25):

We were having our back-office fraud teams have to review almost 50% of our applications pre-migration. Now, that's under 10%. Fraud is always going to be a factor in this space, but that's a real benefit. So much so that frankly, for now, at least the fraud window in digital has really almost closed. And the fraudsters are looking at other channels, unfortunately for everybody to try to take advantage of weaknesses in the bank. But they're recognizing we've closed that.

Doug Peacock (20:03):

And it sort of emboldened our product and marketing team where now they think they can turn the volume up to really start directing more and more offers and opportunities into digital because we're seeing that throughput and that investment, again, with NCR and frankly, they actually protected us from ourselves.

Doug Peacock (20:21):

We being who we are wanted to go in and make some changes to flows and update with Doug Peacock's junior art degree, the way things looked, and they actually warned us off. They said, "We've got really good data, try this, let's see how it works. You can always change it." And sure enough, not surprisingly, they were right. And we're seeing just incredible throughput through our digital sales channel in terms of success right now.

Jim Marous (20:48):

Now, interesting, because fraud and speed sometimes work at cross purposes. That the more you put in place to avoid fraud, the slower the process is? How have you initiated and prioritized the speed of the digital account opening process as well?

Doug Peacock (21:06):

It's a great question and you're right. And it's frankly the number one frustration, again, back to my comment about customer experience and surveying our customers. When they knock us on account opening, it's always because of speed. It's never because of what's on the screen. It's they were frustrated because there were some additional due diligence we had to do.

Doug Peacock (21:24):

So, we've put some not surprisingly, some AI assisted solutions to help from a fraud management and mitigation perspective. Some really, really advanced software that's really revolutionized the way we think about software and done I think a really nice job of federating a lot of sources to look and help understand who the customer is or at least is purported to be. And that's been the biggest.

Doug Peacock (21:52):

Of course, even for existing customers, we've made that as seamless as possible. We still check that, but we've just made it as close to a one-click account opening as we can. We're not quite there yet, but we have aspirations to be that fast.

Doug Peacock (22:04):

And so, it's a balancing act, Jim. But I think right now, we've stuck a pretty good cord. We've got some in internal benchmarks in terms of wanting to see less than 15 to 20% of our applications going through that manual review. And so far, we're well below that. And again, the fraud number's also bear out. It's been successful.

Jim Marous (22:28):

Now, sticking with speed and scale, Doug Brown, how do you at NCR build a platform that can adjust to the changes and speed and scale? In other words, you're only as good as your last iteration of what you can provide your financial institution partners. How do you keep evolving quickly?

Doug Brown (22:50):

Two levels there, Jim. One is the platform architecture to deliver on that. That's where we get committed to API microservice enablement, which allows for a big configuration change in an agile manner is number one. So, having that cloud enabled real-time data available and how we're going to manifest it, use it as Doug P was talking about as an extension of it.

Doug Brown (23:13):

But at the foundation level for us, we've got to have the security services stability and all those things established. And then we have patterns that are really jumpstart mechanisms by which, hey based on what you're saying, we have established, whether it's reference UI or other capabilities that contain instances of things that allow for us to quickly design what we're talking about and then deliver on it.

Doug Brown (23:39):

And again, from there, it's got to be iterative. Unless you're going to be a me too thing, and then you won't be around very long if that's your game. If it's going to be a me too, you want to be what's better? How do I best the money centers, the neobanks, whoever the biggest competitive threat is.

Doug Brown (23:53):

And that way, Jim, you prevent those customers from being unfaithful, as you talked about it. Silent attrition, we get after them, get connected to them, and that's how we go about it.

Jim Marous (24:04):

So, I'm going to stick with you, Doug Brown. In working with financial institutions of all sizes on digital transformation issues, do you think it's the technology or the people that makes the biggest difference?

Doug Brown (24:19):

I think attitude makes the biggest difference, Jim — attitude. And that gets back to strategy and vision you want to enable. That's the biggest piece. Technology that has to follow, don't get me wrong, that's a requirement, but you've got to have an offensive line that blocks and protects that quarterback to make passes in a little Super Bowl reference for the coming weekend.

Doug Brown (24:37):

So, point is you got to have the foundation of the team and it's multi-discipline, multi-capability set. But I do think it comes down to the leadership vision and appetite for things and attitude. Attitude certainly beats a lot of capabilities is what we see.

Jim Marous (24:54):

From an Associated Bank perspective, who is involved when you look at new initiatives, new opportunities in the marketplace, new technologies, anything? Who's involved within your organization, and how's the process changed, if at all, since the economy has weakened?

Doug Peacock (25:13):

So, our model here, and we, I think do a really nice job of ensuring this, is to have a small group of key leaders in our business line looking at new ideas and opportunities. But we do very little in, I'll call it sort of macro committees, that does an institution of our size little good.

Doug Peacock (25:36):

I always say that speed is our ally and if we get into committee structure upon committee structure, then we're really swimming right into the strength of the money center banks and we're being slow in our decision-making process.

Doug Peacock (25:51):

So, you'll see not surprisingly, business line sponsors, technology sponsors, the requisite bean counters to make sure we're within budget and those type of things. But then we move very rapidly through, and we've got an extremely engaged technology team.

Doug Peacock (26:07):

We also have a structure, and I maybe should have mentioned this. So, I report to both the head of technology as well as the head of business directly, and it's a fairly unique model, but I think it really is a recognition by our CEO, Andrew J. Harmening that digital spans both and you need to have that perspective.

Doug Peacock (26:23):

And so, I have two bosses, which is sometimes fun if you will, but it allows us to get real very quickly because if they get aligned on something, there's little, frankly in the way of stopping that from going to the next level once we get the buy-in from, again, product and marketing and others.

Doug Peacock (26:42):

So, that just really helps us, and I like what Doug Brown was saying earlier, it's attitude. And frankly, the attitude of this bank is we want to be aggressive in this space. We want to be responsible stewards of our balance sheet, but we want to win. And so, we're willing to take some bets and some risks and moving forward at a relatively quick fashion.

Jim Marous (27:06):

So, sticking with you as you've been implementing your digital transformation process, what has been the biggest challenge or hurdle you faced in the process?

Doug Peacock (27:18):

We had a vision when we started. I think that was grounded in fact. I think maybe we had to scale back a little bit of our initial aspirations, but what had ended up happening for us in order to get that first launch is we actually got discipline or religion on this idea of managing scope and what a minimum marketable product looks like.

Doug Peacock (27:43):

And really, the 80/20 rule in action, that this is frankly good enough to go live and we'll get real feedback in the market. And so, rather than sitting on something to make it "perfect," which we all know there really isn't such a thing in this space, let's get this out and let's get customer feedback.

Doug Peacock (28:00):

Of course, it has to meet security, compliance, regulatory, rigor, and technology, it has to be well put together. But it allowed us, frankly, to move through the gears pretty quickly once we got our rhythm, and start to make decisions about what's in, what's out on a given release — knowing that we're shifting from a waterfall project mentality to a platform product mentality, and that there would be chances to come back and we wouldn't have to wait for a major FinTech to do a release 18 months from now to get the next update.

Doug Peacock (28:33):

And so, it really helped frankly, our stakeholders get comfortable with the idea that we could iterate and be successful. So, we had to take some medicine in terms of scope and our initial implementation went a little longer. That was frankly on us from a planning perspective. But we really went off without a hitch, so it was worth it in the end.

Jim Marous (28:56):

So, Doug Brown, from your perspective, where do financial institutions often get off course? Not Associated specifically, but from an overall perspective, what do you see usually as the biggest hurdle?

Doug Brown (29:10):

So, Jim, sometimes they over fixate on maybe the wrong outcome of the moment. Like, for example, Associated just mentioned re-casting a launch date. It wasn't as critical that we meet the declared launch date that was declared 15 months before implementation started. It was more important to get it right, show up for the customers in the most meaningful way.

Doug Brown (29:29):

And that takes a lot of courage to reset things after you have publicly declared something was going to go on. So, you've got to have enough confidence in yourself to recast, and I can't understate that enough. And so, that takes a lot and that's where you have to have the right attitude.

Doug Brown (29:43):

And Doug Peacock was describing a team approach to this, that everyone's vested, and everyone's connected. And it's not, again, this — technology in a waterfall model fails Jim, but what fails faster is decisioning in a waterfall model. Let's review it at this level, this team, and then we'll do the next one, the next one.

Doug Brown (30:01):

And then you set up like weeks of these reviews that again, are just ceremonial nature. That's not it. You want to show up for a consumer and business base today that is so demanding, and so in tune with everything that that takes a whole different approach.

Doug Brown (30:16):

So, I think the shortcomings we've seen usually fail in this like failure to have the confidence or conviction to make a change, own it, and know enough to what's going on is the typical problem, I see.

Jim Marous (30:28):

So, the final question's going to go to both of you. I'll start with you, Doug Brown. A lot of organizations are investing in data analytics, improved customer experience, and looking at from both an experience and a cost perspective.

Jim Marous (30:41):

Where do you suggest organizations start their digital banking transformation process? Or what do you think should be the first thing on their checkoff list if they haven't done it already?

Doug Brown (30:55):

They need to be in tune, Jim, like what do they need to deliver that's going to matter to the segments that they're serving? And so, getting back to what's in the ... is it a demographic segment or some other market segment, which they've defined what matters and how you're going to go about to be relevant to that particular segment cohort.

Doug Brown (31:14):

So, I think it's understanding that first and then secondly, making sure you've got capabilities that are the foundational needs of data needs to be real-time, available. We prefer cloud-enabled instance to help support our clients and being flexible with it.

Doug Brown (31:30):

So, it's a duofold approach of you can never understand your market enough, Jim. That's why we love working with you and others to keep that test, keep a pulse on things, and that pulse is going to change. So, understand that, know that, but start there. Have the plumbing in place that gets it done right, and then be willing to maneuver what it's going to take to really hit an ever-moving target.

Jim Marous (31:53):

And Doug Peacock, almost every organization is in the process, in their mind, at least of digital banking transformation. What suggestion would you give them learning what you've learned over the last few years?

Doug Peacock (32:06):

Yeah, thanks, Jim. You really have to start with the end in mind, and that's maybe the end of the phase you're in, not necessarily where you think you'll be three to five years because things change so rapidly.

Jim Marous (32:18):

It's going to change.

Doug Peacock (32:19):

And that was really the exciting thing for us, is selling that vision because you have to sell it. You sell it as a digital leader or a technology leader not only to your executive colleagues and your peers, but also around your organization.

Doug Peacock (32:34):

So, like many banks our size, we've got a very strong branch network with really great people that do an awesome job of servicing our customers. And the way we sold this is, listen, digital is a reflection of our bank's value proposition where we want to reveal opportunities for customers to connect to that value.

Doug Peacock (32:56):

And so, by going through that and really saying that, listen, we're going to bring some great technology, but we're looking at how we're going to (back to the data question) make this great for the customer overall, regardless of what channel he or she chooses to serve or products they choose to buy.

Doug Peacock (33:11):

And I think when you get people behind that, when you do hit those bumps in the road, people, they understand where you're going and it's so compelling that they just keep going right through it. And we're blessed to have the support here of an executive team, but frankly a full organization that understood where we were trying to go as well as partners like NCR and you that help us to get there. So, it's great.

Jim Marous (33:34):

It's been great having you both on this show today. And it's interesting because it is not easy to go through digital transformation. There's no end point, so you're always working toward a moving target, but trying to keep pace with, or at least, hopefully, exceed the speed that the marketplace is changing is so important.

Jim Marous (33:52):

And it's hardest that organizations like yours, Associated Bank because you're a big organization, you're not small by any means, and you still have to be agile. So, I'm sure that if you implemented today versus a couple years ago, you do things somewhat differently, probably doing much faster. Because just in the whole iterative process you're going with right now, that probably wasn't in place initially.

Jim Marous (34:16):

But great having you both on the show, and thank you so much for sharing your insights.

Doug Peacock (34:23):

Thanks, Jim. Thanks Doug.

Doug Brown (34:25):

Thank you, Jim.

Jim Marous (34:26):

Thanks for listening to Banking Transformed, rated the top five banking podcast and winner of three international awards for podcast excellence. We appreciate the support we have received to make this endeavor a success. If you enjoy what we're doing, please take some time to give some love in the form of a review.

Jim Marous (34:44):

Finally, be sure to catch my recent articles on The Financial Brand and check out the research we're doing for the Digital Banking Report.

Jim Marous (34:52):

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thank you to our senior producer, Leah Haslage, audio engineer, Sean Rule-Hoffman, and video producer, Will Pritts.

Jim Marous (35:02):

I'm your host, Jim Marous. Remember, digital transformation is not an option, it is a path to survival in a rapidly changing marketplace.