Point B recently announced the hiring of Bjorn Pettersen as Customer Executive of the firm's 
financial services practice. Pettersen is a consulting and financial services veteran, bringing 25 years of experience and expertise to his new role, spanning eight years at tech consultancies including TCS, Accenture, and IBM Global Services where he held a variety of roles. Pettersen also spent six years as a partner at KPMG US. Consulting recently caught up with Pettersen to talk about his new role, the unique challenges financial services sector clients are facing right now, and the biggest related consulting opportunities.
Consulting: What are your top priorities and main areas of focus starting out in your new role?
Pettersen: As a result of Covid 19, the current recession and the rapid move to digital, our financial services clients are facing major transformation challenges as their business models have been severely disrupted. Our priorities are focused on helping our clients in the Northeast and beyond deal with the disruption as well as creating the new operating model for the future – putting people first in the process of transformation.
Consulting: In your many years of experience in the financial services sector you've seen a lot, how unique is the current climate clients are facing compared to previous times of hardship? What are some of the unique challenges' clients are grappling with?
Pettersen: I would split the challenges into 3 areas:
- Covid 19 is major disruptor for financial services organizations, and few were prepared to make the changes to service clients, employees and compete in this new environment. Most of our clients realized they need to focus on digital and be more data-driven, and their current infrastructure is struggling to support those needs.
- The current recession requires a recrafting of an organization's digital strategy, as well as rebalancing their product road map to better serve their clients. I think this is great opportunity for financial institutions to close the trust deficit by focusing on long-term relationships rather than short-term profits.
- The new world – what does it hold? Given the rapid adoption of digital by financial services firms, it's time to take a new look their role in the ecosystem. Traditionally, it has been a 'transactional strategy' or 'assets under management strategy' (look after your money, provide loans) which you see reflected in the vision statement of many financial services firms. However, to compete now, you will have to rethink your role in the ecosystem, and it might require moving to a 'data under management' strategy. Changing the operating model to compete in this new world will be a significant challenge for many.
Consulting: What are the biggest consulting opportunities you're seeing across the FS landscape?
Pettersen: I see a move to digitize customer interactions and move to the cloud. Most financial services organizations would agree that they should have been much more digital. We're also seeing the need to help clients develop and implement new operating models to take advantage of the benefits of the move to digital. This includes a restructuring of workforce and operations to become more agile. Finally, we see a large opportunity to help clients respond to rapid changes in innovation and evolve their value proposition to respond to changing customer needs.
Consulting: What are the biggest or most frequent demands you're seeing from clients, and how much of that is being driven by post-pandemic uncertainty?
Pettersen: Clients are seeing the need to think more strategically about their target operating model. Instead of making short-term, tactical moves and cuts, thinking more holistically about what your organization and model to look like. And they're looking for innovative techniques in employee engagement – given the protracted nature of the remote work FS organizations are doing, it's really challenging to find effective, innovative ways to engage employees. I would add that most of our clients are working on risk management and cost reduction programs – and they want to increase the effectiveness of those programs.
Consulting: With the impending change in US presidential administration, what sort of concerns are top of mind for clients?
Pettersen: One concern would be the regulatory picture and potential changes that could negatively impact financial services organizations. We're looking for guidance and leadership from the new administration to continue to shore up the economy and increase the speed in which we're getting the US population vaccinated and back to work.
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