Eran Agrios, SVP & GM of Financial Services, Salesforce
How does it feel to be selected as a judge for BIAN’s inaugural Transformation Awards?
I’m thrilled to be a judge and to learn more about the submissions. This is the first year BIAN is conducting this award program and I’m honored to be part of the judging panel. I can’t wait to see what people create.
What does innovation look like to you?
Innovation is always an exciting premise, and the beauty of innovation is that everyone can participate. You can be the creator, the inspiration or the consume of the innovation. Within my own company, when I meet with our Salesforce Trailblazer community, I’m inspired to hear stories of how they’re driving impact in their organizations using technology. One stat that surprises me is how 67% of banks’ IT budgets are spent simply keeping the lights on. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for innovation.
I believe BIAN can help reduce the costs surrounding legacy technology maintenance, by creating a set of standards that helps banks overcome obstacles surrounding interoperability – essentially creating a roadmap to plug and play banking.
I am proud of the innovative work we did last year on the coreless banking POC where we showcased examples of how banks can take advantage of faster and more cost-effective development of services relevant to today’s digital-first customers.
How will BIAN’s awards programme benefit participants?
I’m going to quote BIAN’s charter “the unique BIAN community along with its members — namely financial institutions, software vendors, system integrators, consultancies, and academics — work together to create common business- and IT standards for the financial services industry.” These awards embody our charter. These awards are beneficial for participants as it gives them an opportunity to contribute to the development of service level standards in the banking industry while getting an opportunity to network with peers who share common interests and concerns about SOA.
Elevating awards winners and nominees brings focus to the most innovative ideas, creating best practices and alignment for banking architecture.
Why is it important to celebrate successful implementation of new technologies?
I consistently and increasingly get questions from Salesforce’s financial services customers and partners about how they can leverage BIAN to modernize their technology stack and truly digitize the bank. These awards will inject new ideas and examples of how companies can use BIAN’s tools including our rich service landscape that has more than 240 APIs. We want to celebrate those who have found a proven success path that can be replicated and leveraged.
Successful implementations, such as service management or open banking architectures, transform inflexible, legacy environments into scalable, agile IT and business solutions. This ultimately drives tremendous business value; speed to market with quicker integration, increased revenue by plugging into fintechs for new revenue streams, and cost reduction with API reuse.
The more we share our implementation success, the more alignment and transformation it brings to the industry as a whole.
What will you be looking for from the entrants?
Some criteria I’ll really be evaluating is scalability, flexibility, and ease of use. I’ll be considering ideas around how BIAN can help deliver a modern architecture that unlocks the ability to create differentiated experiences quickly and reduce the data silos we so desperately need to overcome.
This is critical to the banking industry and I’m excited to see the innovations that help banks solve their business challenges and allow them to engage their customers more effectively. I want an ah-ha moment!
To find out more information about the BIAN Transformation Award, see here.