Bank disruption: from DIMM (DIgital Maturity Model) to BIMM (Bank Internet Maturity Model)

Bank disruption: from DIMM (DIgital Maturiy Model) to BIMM (Bank Internet Maturity Model)

Digital transformation affects every kind of organizations

Digital transformation1 mainly affects large organizations not from the Internet, with an established market (often based on facts monopolies inherited from the State or an exclusive regulation in a particular territory) who must adapt their business models to survive the disruption imposed by new companies and startup and gradually all sectors. The concept is the subject of a buzz in the external communication of companies, often without definition2 or delimitation and appropriate method taking into account their organizational and strategic contingency elements and managerial associates (culture, business, ...).

In the academic world, the question is addressed by some work including in particular those conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT Center for Digital Business) in partnership with Cap Gemini Consulting which resulted in the definition of a schema for understanding the digital transformation. This work was also realized by the publication of the book Leading Digital in October 2014 and were renewed for 3 years. Our research project is based on these questions and start of work done for the book Digital Transformation (October 2014, Pearson) and the digital maturity measurement tool associated, DIMM (DIgital Maturity Model). The contribution of the book lies in the construction of a model for measuring the digital maturity of any organization at a t time that comes at the service of the organization's strategy. This one is built on 5 levers (Organization, Products and Services, People, Technology and Innovation, Environment) and 117 indicators to determine for each of them where the organization is located in its digital maturity.

BIMM, new tool developed to reach the Hasler grand challenge

The aim is to build a model based on Creative Commons licence to be widely used, to reach operational issues, for the digital transformation process of the bank universe. The conceptual and analytical framework taken refers to the work of Jay Galbraith on the "organizational design" and the adaptation of "best practices" often from pure players, GAFA and an adoption of the technologies used by the main Web leaders companies : cloud * aaS, mobility, big data, etc. The five socio-technical properties of digital environments shall be demonstrated:

1. decentralization: an open architecture in P2P

2. asynchronicity: choice of communicating at any time (as Evernote does) with offline and online mode without losing each operation/transaction performed

3. persistence : same role for every end-user in a P2P way

4. multilateralism: possibly the inclusion of a social network for the bank (for example Venmo from PayPal)

5. instantaneity: every operation is immediately updated in the DBMS or architecture used

To reach this objective, the base model, DIMM, shall be adapted and enhanced for the bank philosophia. The approach for digital transformation of the bank is as for every digital change both top-down (new business models, new services imagined from the top management: strategy, IT, marketing and human resource management are the most involved) and bottom-up (idea from the people from the bank but also clients, partners, suppliers in order to have an open innovation process). The research methodology will be based on field studies focusing on the banking sector with an international benchmark in particular including:

- The development of fintechs and phenomena that will revolutionize the industry: virtual currency such as Bitcoin and loyalty programs as well as PayPal developments, crowdfunding, automation of certain processes and tasks performed by financial advisors, changes induced by multichannel and multidevice connections and those which can't be addressed by the CRM, etc. ;

- An analysis of the different strategies that banks conduct for their digital transformation: creation of centers dedicated to innovation, partnerships, startups redemptions, etc.

How to measure the digital transformation of the bank with BIMM?

To build this improved model called BIMM, a qualitative and quantitative survey will be performed before. It will allow us to define/enhance the KPIs used to scale each component of the maturity level. The work performed will define digital maturity indicators for the banking sector (with new numerical ratios that will improve the management both at strategic and operational levels). Each indicator will have a different weight in order to give a level of maturity on each lever. Some idea for the KPIs are hereby summarized:

APIs (with internalization of heart business developments - APIs and user experience) developed by the infrastructure of the bank to enable the creation of an ecosystem (start-up with new services and products)

Open data with the respect of the legislation in all the countries where the bank or financial institution is present

POCs developed by the bank and its ecosystem to enhance existing products or create new ones

Use of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in order to have a P2P system

GNU/Linux: the challenge of the bank will be to make the translation from Cobol and old DBMS systems to agile tools

Bankpedia (a Wikipedia like for the bank universe) to share some knowledge for everyone

Smartphone and IoT devices for the payment but also every kind of operations of everyday’s life

More the bank will developed a widely open and secure technology infrastructure with relevant services for its customers, higher its maturity level will be.

David Fayon