I am the CEO of Lucky money and have spent my career connecting “fin” and “tech” by uniting the advantages of Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
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For the fintech space, 2022 has been an eventful year and many companies will need to enter a new phase in 2023 as they face challenging economic conditions. Conversations I’ve had with employees, industry leaders and investors, coupled with the changing macroeconomic environment, have given me a lot to think about the new year. A question that comes up regularly is: “When are we going to go back to normal?”
Whether the sentiment pertains to consumer trends, the adoption of technology, or the return to personal work, my answer is the same: “We’re not going back.” In fact, we will continue to see a rapid pace of change where intelligence-driven and agile companies win.
But what does this mean in practice? I’m sharing some of my predictions on how technology leaders can embrace this fast-paced environment to hit the ground running and succeed in 2023.
1. Integrated financial services will be an expectation
We already see what it looks like for any company to be a fintech company. I expect we will see more consumer lending solutions in 2023 with widespread adoption of integrated finance and progress in banking digitalisation. This is already happening with buy now, pay later (BNPL). expands to other categories. As Bain notesconsumers are less interested in traditional stand-alone financial services and favor embedded experiences.
Businesses looking to expand into financial services or expand their offerings need to consider what naturally fits into their customer flow. For example, BNPL is a viable consideration for companies selling products that customers would rather pay for over time, such as large items or discretionary spending. Ultimately, it starts with the customer and understanding how they interact with your business from a financial transaction standpoint.
2. Network effects will be a competitive advantage
I recently wrote about leveraging network effects, and an NFX report network effects found were responsible for 70% of the value in technology by 2022. As economic conditions continue to change, there is still an opportunity to innovate and collect smaller players that are too small to have strong engineering, data science, and machine learning teams. Smaller players may lag behind as the world becomes more digital, allowing technology platforms to add value through new technology, distribution channels, customer segments and business opportunities. Shopify is an example of a technology platform that offers this support.
Who is the key to this innovation and enabling network effects? As I’ve stated in the past, your organization’s technologists are likely aware of the advancements in your industry. Therefore, they are often excited and ready to use these tools to solve complex problems and build breakthrough solutions. That’s why it’s important to both train and encourage your technical staff. You want to provide a solid foundation for understanding your strategic goals within the context of the larger environment surrounding your business. Then coach your technologists in developing cost-benefit analyzes that support data-informed, information-driven business cases. I usually encourage teams to seek peer feedback and work with an iterative approach that will elevate and improve their ideas.
3. Companies will have to embrace distributed work
If you spend even five minutes on LinkedIn, you know that the debate between personal, hybrid, and distributed work is still alive. But what does the data tell us? owl lab Report on remote work found that the number of employees choosing to work remotely increased by 24% by 2022, the number of employees choosing hybrid work increased by 16% and interest in office work fell by 24%. The data keeps pouring in this McKinsey study found that, when offered, almost everyone takes advantage of the opportunity to work flexibly.
Companies that want to embrace this flexible working mindset should focus on improving and optimizing synchronous activities such as all hands meetings, lunch and learn, and coffee chats. Supporting asynchronous work is also important. Personally, I am a champion of written and narrative documentation of projects, allowing people to review and process at their own time and pace. In my experience, this makes meetings even more productive and effective, allowing people to focus on the results of the time they spend together.
Looking forward to the new year
No one has a crystal ball for what the coming year has in store. But I am confident that 2023 will be a year that will force technology companies to be more agile. I encourage technology leaders to focus on ways to make your organization more intelligence-driven, as the pace of change will only accelerate. The faster technology leaders adapt, the more likely they are to thrive.
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