For organizations looking to join or boost their presence in the Fintech revolution, success starts with building the right team. Fintech 2.0 is a fast-moving industry anchored by technology that’s getting more sophisticated every day. The business applications and growth potential of new offerings are limited only by the vision of their creators. At the same time, efforts to innovate in an established and heavily regulated financial industry come with definite pitfalls. Finding a partner who can deliver a team with the right balance of talents and experience is essential. Here are four considerations to keep in mind.
1. Stay Focused on the End-User
At this point in the Fintech revolution, it’s not a question of if new offerings will be successful. It’s a question of which will be successful. An innovative idea is just the first of many steps in bringing a successful offering to market. Make sure your team is committed to understanding its audience, including what it wants and its level of technological prowess.
Equally important is hiring individuals or finding an established partner with a background in user experience. This is one area where a little extra probing in the vetting process can help. Look beyond the team’s stated experience and ask pointed questions to determine if they truly understand UX and how it factors into successful applications. You’re looking for a partner with a track record of success in past projects and work experience. Additionally, it’s worth checking that your partner understands the importance of communications and can succinctly explain to users what this new offering is, how they can use it, and why they should care.
It’s also critical to ensure your team has the scope of skills needed to navigate the inevitable complexities of the global Fintech infrastructure market and unforeseen and complex challenges of integrating into it. Look for partners that bring deep industry knowledge, understand the details of transactional integration and have strong collaboration skills to work across partners. This broad set of experiences will ensure that they can get product releases done on time.
2. Focus on Driving Revenue
However, new Fintech product offerings can be easily derailed by focusing on the creative interface with too many bells and whistles without a clear path to drive market penetration and revenue generation. As with many projects and product development efforts, it’s all too common for passionate product teams to let their creativity and zealousness get the better of them by focusing on creating the perfect product. It's easy to lose sight of what features are really critical to driving and expanding revenue channels. Strategic product and market goals that are clearly articulated to the team can help keep the focus on the right priorities, whether that’s increasing market competitiveness or growing customer loyalty. In many cases, giving team members a stake in the revenue that is to be generated can help maintain the laser-focus that’s needed for successful initiatives.
3. Rely on Thinkers, Not Doers
The Fintech sector and the products emerging from it are evolving so fast that product development teams who simply focus on delivering code will most likely fail to one degree or another. The successful players in this sector have teams of individuals who always bring strategic insights and out-of-the-box thinking into building out product functionality. Having experts on your team who are not only good engineers but also industry knowledgeable and passionate about creating the next impactful innovation will lead companies to push the market significantly forward.
Conceptualizing, developing, testing, and improving to build a world-class product requires a team that excels in each and every key area.'
4. Partner with Experts
Finding teams that are skilled and experienced in Fintech and understand how to engineer world-class, highly functional products is critical to your success. It takes more than working with a partner that just has talent; the stakes are too high. The right partner must have the talent and bring creativity, passion, domain experience, and out-of-the-box thinking to make your vision a reality.
