Greg Hennessy shares an article on how to best provide support for friends and colleagues.  If you are anything like me, you do your best to support your family, friends, and colleagues in times of need or propel them to new heights in times of growth and opportunity. But with so many things to juggle in life, I occasionally find myself running on “autopilot” when I should be listening, learning, and shaping my support to the situation at hand.  Like…

In this article, Luiz Zorzella explains how a skillful strategy identifies profitable areas. Financial services leaders often overlook the importance of your decision regarding which segments, markets, channels, and products to focus on. One of the reasons is that, while money moves freely, the effort to build channels, brands, products, trust, relationships, and physical infrastructure, can be humongous. Large insurance companies can take more than a year to implement simple changes to existing products. Thus, short of dramatic strategic moves…

Gregory Hennessy shares an evergreen article on the structure of power and how it is affected by systems thinking. How is it that those with power seem to gain even more of it over time? And why do the disadvantaged seem to lose what little power they have, becoming increasingly reliant on those in positions of influence? If these dynamics are based on either divine or natural law, as some might suppose, then nothing can be done to change them—which…

Luiz Zorzella shares a short post on how to accelerate growth in your current markets.  Most businesses look for growth opportunities on their current markets, which are familiar and where they have brand equity. To stand out and to produce real growth from current markets: Stop limiting your upside to benchmarks and take the value you provide your customers to the next level Explore alternatives growth models. One high-impact growth project may generate more growth than ten low-impact ones Stop…

Greg Hennessy shares an article drawn from systems thinking and the pattern of behavior that leads to a success silo for the successful.  How is it that those with power seem to gain even more of it over time? And why do the disadvantaged seem to lose what little power they have, becoming increasingly reliant on those in positions of influence? If these dynamics are based on either divine or natural law, as some might suppose, then nothing can be…

In this article, Luiz Zorzella shares the processes of successful strategists.  Financial services leaders often overlook the importance of your decision regarding which segments, markets, channels, and products to focus on. One of the reasons is that, while money moves freely, the effort to build channels, brands, products, trust, relationships, and physical infrastructure, can be humongous. Large insurance companies can take more than a year to implement simple changes to existing products. Thus, short of dramatic strategic moves like divestitures,…

In this article, Luiz Zorzella explains how understanding the net interest margins will better inform your business strategy.   If you are a bank executive and want to manage the bank’s business strategically, you must understand the key drivers of your bank’s profitability and the trade-offs they imply. For example, to some extent, banks can trade the cost of deposits for efficiency ratio by making it more convenient for clients to make deposits. At the same time, the equilibrium of these…

Luiz Zorzella shares an article designed to help improve strategy by understanding your net Interest margin (NIM).  If you are a bank executive and want to manage the bank’s business strategically, you must understand the key drivers of your bank’s profitability and the trade-offs they imply. For example, to some extent, banks can trade the cost of deposits for efficiency ratio by making it more convenient for clients to make deposits. At the same time, the equilibrium of these trade-offs…

  Luiz Zorzella shares a summarized evolution story on Open Banking.  If you are thinking your response to what is happening around Open Banking, this will provide you with some valuable historical context on how events evolved to get us where we are today: It all started with online banking. Before Open Banking, banks thought it would be a good idea to give their clients access to their accounts using the internet.  So, since clients could access their accounts using…

  Luiz Zorzella shares an article on the growth of open banking, the factors that “repress” adoption, and possible solutions.  As you probably know, worldwide, Open Banking is one of the hottest trends in financial services.  Not only is it growing at a breakneck speed, but also its success is inspiring regulators and players in other sectors like finance and insurance who now wonder how to replicate the model. This article is a high-level review of what is happening in…

  Luiz Zorzella shares an article that identifies key insights for improving a service team’s performance and results. If your firm is organized around service teams, you may find that understanding and managing their contribution is difficult. It is not easy because it depends on several logic leaps that sound intuitive but are opaque. For example, you may set goals and even reward them for keeping the clients in their portfolio happy. You may achieve this through a combination of…

  The power of writing a list should never be forgotten. Luiz Zorzella has compiled a six-point list of tools and approaches that improve efficiency.  If you ever thought: ‘Hmmm… wouldn’t it be nice if I had a one-pager list of the tools that people use to improve process efficiency?’ Then today is your lucky day! I have listed below my compilation of the main tools and approaches I found which other executives and consultants use to directly or indirectly…