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It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

bloomberg.com

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Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#141

Post by jnordwick »

apaprocki wrote: post #128
jnordwick wrote: post #59

Tech and finance are two very broad brushes that both paint a large swath of the business landscape. When speaking of finance there is everything from regional banks or loan originators to investment banks and trading firms. They are often very far apart in terms of culture, abilities, and pay. On the higher end in tech you get front desk trading, and they are most definitely a tech subsidy inside a larger institutio…

> Even companies like Bloomberg that you wouldn't really think of beyond their news service is a massive tech company on the back end The company's entire founding premise was to computerize tasks still accomplished by humans and paper in 1981. The News subsidiary was founded nearly a decade later in 1990. So it's more a case of the tech company considering News the "News-end" rather than tech being considered the "b…

I was at an APL(ish) lecture a year ago that veered off into the early years of Bloomberg. I thought it was awesome.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#142

Post by ucaetano »

rdiddly wrote: post #108
oblio wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to ask people what's the biggest advertising company in the world. You'd be surprised how many people don't know :)

You know who else would be surprised, is 1998 Larry Page & 1998 Sergey Brin. Especially the part about hearing their company called an "advertising company," much less the largest one.

Which then makes any ad-paid company an advertising company. Which is a completely useless definition.

Don't mix source of revenue with core business, especially in multi-sided markets.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#143

Post by madeofpalk »

sbov wrote: post #112
organsnyder wrote: post #9

I work for a large healthcare system, and the "we're not a tech company" line is often heard. At many levels, I agree—we're in the business of delivering healthy outcomes to our communities, so we need to make sure that efforts across the enterprise support that—but it is often applied in ways that stifle us from delivering what we feel would be the most impactful and cost-effective solutions. I like to respond that…

Can't you play this definition game with any company though? I kind of think that if an organization views tech as a competitive advantage and core competency, they are a tech company. E.g. Netflix may be in the business of entertainment, but they are also a tech company. Google may be in the business of selling ads, but they are also a tech company.

Yes you can, and that's kind of the point.

Slowly but surely, more and more companies are realising that their digital efforts are just as integral to their business as whatever else it is that they're doing. Every company needs to be a tech company now.

In Australia, Commbank realised this at a very early stage: there's actually very little differentiation between the financial products from bank to bank. Sure, interest rates change here and there but on the whole, everyone is the same. Commbank realised that they can make their internet banking and mobile apps just as much as their core product and their differentiator. People aren't going to stay with their bank because of a debit card, but they will stay the one with the better app with more features. They rolled out a bunch of firsts - peer to peer payments by bumping phones together in 2010, transferring money to others using just their phone number, or 'Cardless Cash' where overnight they updated their network of ATMs to allow withdrawals using their phone app.

Qantas is another example of a company that invests (for better or worse) heavily into their digital products all throughout the customer journey.

Every company needs to be apt at digital because, in one way or another, every company is a tech company. It's the successful ones that realise this and use it to their advantage.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#144

Post by johan_larson »

organsnyder wrote: post #9

I work for a large healthcare system, and the "we're not a tech company" line is often heard. At many levels, I agree—we're in the business of delivering healthy outcomes to our communities, so we need to make sure that efforts across the enterprise support that—but it is often applied in ways that stifle us from delivering what we feel would be the most impactful and cost-effective solutions. I like to respond that…

It looks like Goldman has no tech people among their top executives. I would have expected at least a CTO or CIO. I don't see this working out for them.

http://www.goldmansachs.com/who-we-are/leadership/executive-...

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#145

Post by rdiddly »

ucaetano wrote: post #142
rdiddly wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know who else would be surprised, is 1998 Larry Page & 1998 Sergey Brin. Especially the part about hearing their company called an "advertising company," much less the largest one.

Which then makes any ad-paid company an advertising company. Which is a completely useless definition. Don't mix source of revenue with core business, especially in multi-sided markets.

Don't complain to me, I didn't say it.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#146

Post by [deleted] »

rdiddly wrote: post #145
ucaetano wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which then makes any ad-paid company an advertising company. Which is a completely useless definition. Don't mix source of revenue with core business, especially in multi-sided markets.

Don't complain to me, I didn't say it.

[deleted]

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#148

Post by bunderbunder »

shreyanshd wrote: post #98
organsnyder wrote: post #9

I work for a large healthcare system, and the "we're not a tech company" line is often heard. At many levels, I agree—we're in the business of delivering healthy outcomes to our communities, so we need to make sure that efforts across the enterprise support that—but it is often applied in ways that stifle us from delivering what we feel would be the most impactful and cost-effective solutions. I like to respond that…

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

Funny, I go the other way, somewhat. Last time I was interviewing for jobs, one line I heard from a whole lot of financial companies was, "We like to think of ourselves as more of a tech company than a bank."

It's an instant turn-off for me when I hear something like that. These are companies that should be thinking of tech as a means to an end, and not an end in an of itself. Even when I worked at a major software vendor, the tech was still just a means to an end.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#149

Post by shreyanshd »

dopamean wrote: post #129
shreyanshd wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in technology for an investment bank and i hear “we are not a technology company” every quarter. Ironically, the tech we develop is a major factor, if not the only factor, for revenue. My motivation is instantly shattered when i hear that.

How could you say that the tech you develop might be the only factor in revenue calculations? That makes no sense to me in investment banking.

Tech is obviously not the only factor, but it certainly is an important one. One of the main factors in finacial services tech industry is time to market, efficienct algortihms, being compliant, handling huge bursts of volume and accuracy. Our systems ensure smooth functioning of the business across most exchanges in the world. I think the business is practically impossible without robust technology.

Re: It's Getting Harder to Tell Banks from Tech Companies

#150

Post by dopamean »

yourapostasy wrote: post #134
dopamean wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you say that the tech you develop might be the only factor in revenue calculations? That makes no sense to me in investment banking.

If tech really is the differentiator, then hearing that means tech staff won’t get commensurately compensated for delivering that decisive factor to the revenue mix. The rules of old business still applies in most organizations: the closer you are to the transactional point where money changes hands, the more you make. This many times means sales, then management, then finance, then marketing, then engineering, then…

Yeah I get all that. I guess what I mean is that I just don't believe that the technology at an investment bank is responsible for all of the revenue at the bank. There's no way that's true. There are people who actually go out and do advisory deals and such which are actual people making things happen. Sure, they are enabled by technology, but those kinds of deals have been done for decades.
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