NEW YORK, Nov. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BT and Expand Consulting, today announced the results of a survey of investment banks examining technology innovation and the challenges and opportunities it will present in the next three years. The research was conducted across a subset of the world's top twenty investment banks.
Expand said the survey, the first of its kind, supports BT's belief that technology innovation will enable investment banks to achieve their goal of becoming less product-driven and more customer-centric. This includes the benefits and uses of technologies such as VoIP, video conferencing, Semantic Web and service-orientated architectures from the front to back-offices of investment banks.
The company said by emulating the client management practices of other customer-centric vertical markets, investment banks will drive greater understanding of their client base, leading to better analysis of profitable business. And investment bank growth, attributable to technology, will be achieved through enhanced knowledge sharing and the breaking down the internal lines of business.
Given the current focus on innovation the key findings of the survey include:
* 70 percent of respondents feel technology innovation and its successful deployment would deliver increasing competitive edge. * Technology innovation pace is posing challenges for IT decision makers due to a natural aversion to risk and change; and the perception that business doesn't understand IT and how it can be leveraged for business enablement. * 80 percent of respondents believe data mining, segmentation, and an organizational focus will be at the heart of the future of the financial services industry.
Chuck Pol, President, BT Americas said, "This research demonstrates that the majority of investment banks realize the importance of technology innovation and how critical it is for our financial services customers to leverage technology for a competitive edge. The combination of BT's global network reach, trading systems solution and the shared market infrastructure of BT Radianz positions BT as the only company providing end-to-end trading communications for the global financial markets."
The Expand Consulting/ BT survey canvassed the views of professionals including Chief Technology Officers, Chief Architects and Heads of Electronic lines of business within major financial institutions.
About BT
BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include networked IT services, local, national and international telecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and Internet products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.
In the year ended 31 March 2006, BT Group plc's revenue was £19,514 million with profit before taxation of £2,040 million.
About Expand Consulting
Expand is a specialist consultancy, founded in 2001, that provides unique research, market intelligence and decision-support services to the global financial markets - both to financial institutions and their technology solution providers. With offices in London and New York, Expand has a Tier I capital market client base.
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