In this issue:

• Customer Experience - Bridging the gap between marketing and operational executionIn highly regulated, commoditized industries, the best way to differentiate is to provide a consistent, effortless customer experience. This is evident in the financial services industry, where Forrester Research declared customer experience as “one of the key skills for survival”. Bridging the gap between marketing and operational execution
• How banks compete in the small business marketJust a year or so ago, many small businesses were feeling the significant impact of the financial services meltdown. This impact all too often came in the form of unreliable or shrinking sources of credit or a disruption in access to financial services. This disruption frequently resulted from changes in bank personnel or perhaps failure of the bank. In response to this, many small businesses feel the need to diversify their banking relationships to avoid being left “high and dry” in the future. How banks compete in the small business market
• How to increase merger and acquisition successAccording to the Harvard Business Review, 70%-90% of attempted mergers and acquisitions fail to achieve their envisioned benefits. While this daunting statistic spans all industries and relates to many factors, a key factor for banks is the effectiveness of the integration planning and execution process. In particular, banks that bulk-up need to plan for greater business and operations complexity.Merger and acquisition success
• Are bank IT departments being replaced by vendor management functionsAs the face of technology in banking continues to change, are small and medium-sized banks’ technology departments morphing into vendor management functions or disappearing? Many banks already look to vendors to provide key technology applications and as the trend spreads to hosted infrastructure, there are significant consequences for the bank’s technology department and the key functions that will need to be retained or extended to ensure success. Your IT department and their vendor management functions