Riverbed Survey: Financial Services and Insurance Organizations Must Address the Digital Experience to Secure Reputation, Reduce Risk and Cut Costs

Riverbed Global Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Survey explores new generation of digital natives entering the workforce, including their digital expectations and how to meet them

• 92% of Financial Services and Insurance (FSI) leaders surveyed believe they’ll need to provide more advanced digital experiences as new generations of employees enter the workforce, with 92% also feeling that pressure on IT resources will increase due to changing staff and customer expectations
• 88% say slow-running systems and applications, plus outdated technology, are directly impacting the growth and performance of their organization
• 98% agree delivering an exceptional DEX is important to remain competitive, with 62% describing it as ‘critically important’
• 94% claim there must be greater investment in unified observability solutions that provide actionable insights for better employees and customer digital experiences

Riverbed, the leader in Unified Observability, has announced the Financial Services and Insurance (FSI) industry results of the Riverbed Global Digital Employee Experience (DEX) Survey 2023. The survey found that today’s FSI organizations must employ high standards of DEX to maintain their reputation, avoid risk, cut costs, and retain a new generation of staff. FSI IT teams are already tasked with upgrading infrastructure, taking a more proactive role in the wider business, and providing omnichannel interactions, while contending with tightening budgets and outdated architectures. However, Riverbed’s research also discovered that by implementing the right tools, organizations can meet shifting DEX demands while alleviating their current pressures.

LinkedIn: Riverbed survey reveals that financial services and Insurance organizations must address the digital experience to secure reputation, reduce risk and cut costs: https://rvbd.ly/49sGxzN

The research polled 1,800 global IT decision makers (ITDMs) and business decision makers (BDMs) across 10 countries and seven industries, including almost 300 FSI leaders. The survey explored generational expectations, hybrid work, the evolving role of IT, and challenges and strategies to delivering an exceptional DEX.

Gain access to the Financial Services and Insurance survey results: Infographic

As Knowledge-holders Retire, a New Generation of Digital Natives Enters the FSI Industry

Financial organizations, in particular, rely on long-standing staff members to retain and share knowledge they’ve accumulated over years, sometimes even decades, of work within the business.

“One of the biggest challenges Financial Services and Insurance organizations face is the loss of talent – and therefore skills and knowledge – that inevitably occurs when long-standing employees leave or retire. Now, with digital natives increasingly entering the FSI workforce, it’s more critical than ever that robust DEX solutions are in place. This is not just to keep Gen Z and millennial workers productive but also to avoid risk, automate processes, ensure client financial transactions are efficient, and to empower top talent to work more strategically,” said Jim Gargan, CMO, at Riverbed. “Our Global DEX Survey 2023 confirmed that delivering better digital experiences is only getting harder. What’s encouraging is that most FSI leaders understand the situation at hand and are taking proactive steps to invest in technologies such as AI and unified observability, helping boost staff and customer loyalty.”

Ninety-two percent of FSI decision-makers surveyed believe they will need to provide more advanced digital experiences to meet younger employees’ needs, and the same percentage say younger generation employees place increased strain on IT resources. This latter figure sits higher than the global survey result of 89%, demonstrating the added importance of meeting new DEX needs in the finance industry.

FSI Leaders Agree Failing to Meet Digital Expectations would be Disruptive

In financial services, reputation is everything and dissatisfied staff and skills shortages can put that reputation at risk. FSI leaders surveyed believe 69% of employees would consider leaving the company if an adequate DEX was not provided, and 68% say failing to meet digital expectations would be disruptive, impacting reputation, productivity, or organizational performance. In an industry where seconds and even milliseconds matter, ensuring a seamless digital experience for employees and clients is critical to a financial firm’s success. In fact, 98% of leaders surveyed say delivering a seamless DEX is important (62% critically important) to remain competitive.

With heightened digital expectations and talent, productivity, and competitiveness in jeopardy, almost all survey respondents in FSI (93%) say investing in DEX is among their top priorities for the next five years.

The Challenges of Delivering a Digital Experience

Today, delivering a great digital experience is getting harder, not easier. Ninety-four percent of FSI ITDMs and BDMs surveyed cited at least one major obstacle or gap to delivering a seamless DEX. Respondents to the survey identified lack of sufficient observability tools (36%), budget constraints (34%), too much data (32%), lack of appropriate SaaS or cloud services (29%), and lack of IT talent/skills (28%) as the top obstacles hindering their ability to deliver on the digital employee experience.

However, the issues hampering the digital experience can remedy themselves as FSI organizations part with reduced budget and introduce the best tools that can boost productivity, retain staff, and allow employees to share and build knowledge and skills. Leaders are aware of this as 85% of the survey respondents have set aside money to retrain IT staff, and the majority overwhelmingly believe (86%) that unified observability technology with greater automation can also help close the skills gap.

Encouragingly, the survey also found that 93% of FSI IT and business leaders plan to accelerate digital experience adoption and implementation – a statistic 4% higher than the global consensus.

Empowering the Digital Experience in FSI with Unified Observability

As more employees demand the ability to work from wherever, whenever and in complex hybrid and cloud-based work environments, FSI leaders have stepped up to take a more strategic role, earning themselves a prominent spot in the C-suite.

Eighty-four percent of ITDMs and BDMs in FSI surveyed acknowledge the increasing relevance of IT within the C-suite, while 78% of ITDMs who participated said they currently have a seat at the C-suite table. Additionally, 94% of those surveyed agreed that IT is more responsible for driving business innovation now than it was three years ago.

These leaders expect technology to be an enabler to drive business and impress customers and staff. They also see technologies such as AI and unified observability playing an essential role in providing exemplary digital experiences. Of those surveyed, 95% of FSI leaders agree unified observability is important (55% critically important) to stay competitive and deliver DEX, and 94% say there must be greater investment in unified observability solutions.

Other key findings from the survey:

• Nearly half (49%) of FSI leaders surveyed say a seamless digital experience is the most important factor in keeping their workforce engaged, outperforming traditional office perks such as weekly happy hours (23%), free coffee and snacks (14%), and company merchandise and giveaways (13%).
• Global FSI IT and business leaders surveyed said that over half (53%) of their employees work in a hybrid model (higher than any other industry surveyed), and 98% believe hybrid work enhances their ability to attract and retain talent – ultimately contributing to future competitiveness. As a result, 89% of those surveyed plan to invest in technology over the next 12-18 months to support this hybrid workforce.
• AI (50%), cloud (50%), application and network acceleration technology (37%), Digital Experience Management (DEM) solutions (35%), and automation (35%), are becoming increasingly business critical in the next 18 months according to FSI business and IT leaders who participated in the survey. These established and emerging technologies are crucial for organizations looking to remain competitive in today’s marketplace.

The Riverbed Global Digital Employee Experience Survey 2023 polled 1,800 global IT and business decision-makers representing companies with over $250 million in annual revenue across 10 countries. Their industries include FSI, oil and gas, government/public sector, healthcare/pharmaceutical, manufacturing, retail, and professional services. The survey was conducted by Sapio Research in May 2023.

Discover how IT and business decision-makers are approaching the digital employee experience by diving into the full report: riverbed.com/DEXSurvey2023

About Riverbed

Riverbed is the only company with the collective richness of telemetry from network to app to end user, that illuminates and then accelerates every interaction, so organizations can deliver a seamless digital experience and drive enterprise performance. Riverbed offers two industry-leading portfolios: Alluvio by Riverbed, a differentiated Unified Observability portfolio that unifies data, insights, and actions across IT, so customers can deliver seamless, secure digital experiences; and Riverbed Acceleration, providing fast, agile, secure acceleration of any app, over any network, to users anywhere. Together with our thousands of partners, and market-leading customers globally – including 95% of the FORTUNE 100 – we empower every click, every digital experience. Riverbed. Empower the Experience. Learn more at riverbed.com

Riverbed, Alluvio and certain other terms used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology LLC. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.

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