Around the world, banking customers express similar frustrations: they believe the value they receive from their banks is declining, at a time when their trust in those banks already has eroded.

What’s more, according to a Cisco survey of 7,200 banking customers in 12 countries, four out of five customers would trust a non-bank, such as a technology company or retailer, to handle their banking needs. Some of those disruptive competitors are succeeding where banks fail: by engaging customers with convenient transactions and value-added services.

The Cisco study found that Internet of Everything (IoE)-enabled services can help restore the value customers expect from banking institutions. IoE — the networked connection of people, process, data and things — makes it possible for banks to offer a more relevant, engaging, and convenient experience for customers.

Of the $19 trillion in global economic value Cisco estimates IoE can create over the next decade, 7 percent ($1.3 trillion) is accounted for in the finance market and could be addressed with concepts included in this survey.

The digitization of business and society is happening at a rapid pace and people are looking for improved, digital services that make life easier. Banks need to embrace this pace of change and deliver relevant services or risk becoming obsolete in a market where other providers are stepping in to fill the gaps.

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Tags: analytics, banking, CCS, Cisco, Cisco Consulting Services, data, digital, Financial Services, hyper-relevance, innovation, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE, IoT, Wim Elfrink

In years past, a visit to the neighborhood bank branch often featured face-to-face meetings with a trusted advisor who would guide customers through their most challenging financial journeys — often over a cup of coffee. Today, many banks have ceded that privileged position of trusted advisor. While banks have made great strides in using technology to cut costs and streamline transactions, customer experience and engagement have suffered.

In a Cisco survey of 7,200 bank customers in 12 countries, 43 percent of customers said their primary bank does not understand their individual needs. As a result, many respondents feel that their choice is between bad financial advice or no advice all. Moreover, nearly one in four bank customers intend to choose another provider for their next financial product or service. Increasingly, that provider could be a non-bank such as Apple, PayPal, or a retailer. Four out of five customers would trust a non-bank to handle their banking needs.

Clearly, the perceived value that customers receive from banks is declining, along with their trust in banks to represent their interests. Banks are seen as commoditized — and replaceable — providers of transactions. Meanwhile, in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and some well-publicized banking scandals, banks’ “trusted advisor” status has suffered. Moreover, it is easier than ever to switch to a non-bank that customers believe has a better understanding of their needs.

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Tags: analytics, banking, CCS, Cisco, Cisco Consulting Services, data, digital, Financial Services, hyper-relevance, innovation, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE, IoT

Today’s banking consumers are used to experiences that reflect their likes, dislikes, past histories, and even their future plans. But not always from their banks. These kinds of interactions are more common when buying an online book, streaming a movie, or planning a vacation. Despite numerous omnichannel initiatives, many banks continue to lag in providing contextual, relevant, and convenient experiences to their customers. And while many customers yearn for personalized financial guidance, a Cisco survey of 7,200 smartphone users and bank customers in 12 countries found that for too many bank customers, the choice is between no advice, or what they perceive to be generic advice delivered inconveniently.

As a result, bank customers often try to attain their most important financial goals on their own, via “friends” on social media, or from non-traditional providers of financial services. Moreover, since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, banks’ brand equity has fallen. Read More »

Tags: analytics, banking, CCS, Cisco, Cisco Consulting Services, data, digital, Financial Services, hyper-relevance, innovation, Internet of Everything, internet of things, IoE

Guest Blog by Pat Chou, TMG Product Manager

Since the introduction of the Cisco’s 40G QSFP BiDi (Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable Bidirectional module), we’ve seen phenomenal growth and adoption. I guess people do see the benefit.

What’s that? You haven’t heard?

…Ok, let’s say you’re in charge of a data center and your boss reminds you that streaming video and IoT devices are all the rage and if you don’t keep up with bandwidth demand, you’re toast. You have 10G links that use 10G SFP+ SR transceivers at the aggregation layer. You upgrade your switches or linecards to ones that have 40G QSFP ports like the Nexus series switches. Read More »

Tags: 10G, 40G, aggregation, BiDi, cabling, center, data, fiber, interfaces, marriage, MMF, mode, modules, multi, Optics, products, qsfp, upgrade

Last month, we proudly announced Connected Analytics for the Internet of Everything (IoE), easy-to-deploy software packages that bring analytics to data regardless of its location. It is a continued part of our commitment to delivering on our vision for fog computing, also called edge computing, a model that does not require the movement of data back to a centralized location for processing. If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve seen me write about this as the concept of ‘Analytics 3.0’ or the ability to do analytics in a widely distributed manner, at the edge of the network and on streaming data. This capability is unique to Cisco and critical for deriving real-time insights in the IoE era.

To perform analytics using a traditional computing method, once data is generated it is aggregated, moved and stored into a central repository, such as a data lake or enterprise data warehouse, so it can be analyzed for insight. In the IoE, data is massive, messy, and everywhere – spanning many centralized data repositories in multiple clouds, and data warehouses. Increasingly, data is also being created in massive volume in a very distributed way…from sensors on offshore oil rigs, ships at sea, airplanes in flight, and machines on factory floors. In this new world, there are many problems that arise with the traditional method – not only is it expensive and time consuming to move all of this data to a central place, but critical data can also lose its real-time value in the process. In fact, many companies have stopped moving all of their data into a central repository and accepted the fact that data will live in multiple places.

Analytics 3.0 creates a more appropriate model, where the path to derive insight is different by combining traditional centralized data storage and analysis with data management and analytics that happen at the edge of the network…much closer to where the huge volume of new data is being created. Analytics involves complicated statistical models and software, but the concept is simple…using software to look for patterns in data, so you can make better decisions.  It makes sense then to have this software close to where data is created, so you can find those patterns more quickly…and that’s the key concept behind Analytics 3.0. Once it’s analyzed, we can make more intelligent decisions about what data should be stored, moved or discarded. This model gives us the opportunity to get to the ‘interesting data’ quicker and also alleviates the costs of storing and moving the ‘non-interesting data.’

Analytics 3.0 is not about replacing big data analytics, cloud analytics and other centralized analytics.  Those elements are all part of Analytics 3.0, but they are not sufficient to handle the volume of massively distributed data created in the IoE, and so they must be augmented with the ability to process and analyze data closer to where it is created. By combining centralized data sources with streaming data at the edge, you will look for and find new patterns in your data. Those patterns will help you make better decisions about growing your business, optimizing your operations or better serving your customers…and that is the power of Analytics for the IoE.

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Learn More from My Colleagues

Check out the blogs of Mala Anand, Bob Eve and Nicola Villa to learn more.

Tags: analytics, Big Data, cloud, connected analytics, data, Internet of Everything, IoE