Key Highlights
- Bank transformation frequently falls short as user preparedness is often overlooked.
- Banks can better assess workforce preparedness by measuring performance rather than training completion.
- Before going live, employees can gain competence and confidence through practical simulation training.
- Ongoing in-app guidance helps maintain adoption and safeguard transformation of ROI after go-live.
Banking strategy now includes digital transformation as a permanent component. Banks’ operations are changing due to core banking modernization, cloud migration, ERP replacement, AI adoption, digital lending, automation, and new client platforms. However, there is an unsettling statistic underlying all that expenditure: over 70% of significant changes fall short of their intended objectives. For years, McKinsey has reported this failure rate for significant transformation initiatives.
Banking is no exception. According to McKinsey, only 30% of banks that have undergone digital transformation reported successfully putting their digital strategy into practice, with the majority failing to meet their goals. That does not imply that 70% of banks abandon technology or stop implementing a change.
However, employees still look for old workarounds. Tickets for support rise. Efficiency declines. Teams find it difficult to use new workflows. Managers determine if users are truly capable. Expected ROI either never fully materializes or takes longer. Assima cannot fix the poor data migration. It helps banks bridge the gap between system preparation and user readiness by allowing staff to practice realistic workflows prior to go-live, offering assistance when needed, and assessing actual proficiency rather than just training completion.
The 70% Issue: What the Data Actually Shows
“70% of transformations fail” may sound more dramatic than it actually is. Rarely does a transformation failure result in a project’s total collapse. It usually indicates that the endeavor fails to produce the business results that were once anticipated. A bank can effectively launch a new core banking platform yet not see the anticipated increases in productivity. Technically sound, a new CRM might not be widely embraced. While staff continue to rely on spreadsheets and unofficial workarounds, an ERP rollout may reach its technical milestones. That distinction is important. According to McKinsey’s research especially on digital banking, approx. 30% of banks reported effectively implementing their digital strategy, while the company’s overall transformation failure rate is estimated to be over 70%.
Why Digital Transformation in Banks Frequently Fails at Adoption?
Technology is not always the whole issue. Technical debt, organizational silos, and overestimated complexity and expense are some of the execution issues identified by McKinsey’s banking research. According to its data, 70% of digital banking transformations exceeded their initial budgets, while more than half either failed or beyond their intended timelines.
However, even when technology is implemented well, there is still an issue: humans must adapt their working methods. Even if a new system is technically better, it might not be useful if employees are unable to use it efficiently.
Employees Don’t Oppose Technology
“Resistance to change” is frequently viewed as a communication issue. More emails should be sent. Organize a second town hall. Describe the advantages. Make a different presentation. Although those things can be helpful, they don’t address the employee’s most pressing query:
“Is it possible for me to perform my duties in this new system?”
Imagine a relationship manager switching to a new platform from a well-known traditional CRM. They might comprehend the bank’s decision. They might be in favor of the change. They might even have finished the necessary training. However, they suddenly have to keep in mind when confronted with an actual client interaction:
- where to find the right customer information
- which fields are mandatory
- how to initiate the correct workflow
- which sequence of actions is required
- what has changed from the previous process
- what to do when something does not behave as expected
Confidence is crucial in this situation. After practicing a new workflow, people are far more likely to accept.
Training Completion & Readiness Aren’t Same
This is one of the most common issues in enterprise training. A bank can state that 98% of its employees finished their training. It sounds great. However, what does it really tell the leadership?
Nothing at all. Completion indicates that a person accessed or completed an educational task. It doesn’t always indicate whether that person is capable of carrying out a crucial workflow independently and accurately. The question that is more beneficial for transformational leaders is:
Can this employee do the task?
This entails assessing not just attendance but also proficiency, task performance, errors, confidence, and areas of difficulty. Additionally, this aligns with the broader findings of change management. Effective change management and project outcomes are strongly correlated. According to Prosci’s research: 88% of projects with excellent change management met or exceeded objectives, compared to 73% with good change management and 39% with mediocre change management. This gives clear message that treating the people side as a final step is not acceptable.
The Adoption Gap Is Where Value from Transformation Is Lost
Every significant bank transformation can be viewed in a helpful light. Actually, there are two benchmarks for readiness:
System Ready -> Workforce Ready
The first is well known. Integrations are tested by IT teams. Workflows are verified by project teams. Controls are evaluated by security teams. Requirements are approved by business teams. Go-live follows. However, “training completed” is sometimes used to describe labor readiness. This leads to a gap in adoption. Although the system is available, staff members are still learning how to use it. The outcome may be foreseeable:
Go-live → confusion → workarounds → support dependency → productivity loss → delayed ROI
More classroom instruction is not always the solution. Improved practice, encouragement, and visibility into proficiency are the answers. Assima is the perfect fit for it.
How Assima Closes the Gap in Adoption?
It is necessary to define Assima’s role precisely. It doesn’t improve a subpar transformation approach. A failed data migration cannot be fixed by it. Systems integration testing is not substituted by it. Assima deals with the adoption layer, which is the stage at which staff members have to adapt a new system to a new method of working. It uses four interconnected capabilities to achieve this.
1. Develop True Proficiency Prior to Go-Live
In traditional software training, employees are frequently asked to observe someone walking through a procedure and then attempt to recall it afterward. The formula is altered by simulation. Assima builds interactive versions of business apps, so staff members can practice realistic workflows without having to work in a real-world production setting. According to the company, its cloning technology produces fully interactive replicas of programs instead of just screenshots.
When a bank rolls out a new core banking system, for instance, employees can practice activities like entering data, navigating displays, adhering to procedures, and finishing role-specific scenarios before the system is integrated into their everyday work. That is significant because confidence is a result of action. Additionally, training can employ synthetic or anonymized data instead of revealing actual client information. According to Assima’s own guidelines, records for simulation-based training should be anonymized or artificial.
2. Continue Adoption After Go-Live
Formal training peaks prior to launch in many transformations. Employees are then left to handle new scenarios on their own while trainers and project teams proceed to the next stage. Knowledge begins to deteriorate at that point. In-App Search, which offers contextual support within the program and can surface pertinent advice based on the user’s situation, is one-way Assima addresses this. Although small, the change is significant.
Users can obtain assistance closer to the time of need rather than exiting the program to look through a training portal, open a manual, or consult a colleague. This makes adoption ongoing as opposed to a one-time occurrence. Future process modifications, refresher training, and new hires can all benefit from the same training resources. This is significant in the banking industry since transformation rarely occurs only once. Platforms, procedures, rules, and consumer experiences are all constantly evolving.
3. Access Proficiency Instead of Completion
If the goal is adoption, the measurement approach must be modified. Although a dashboard indicating that 95% of staff members have finished training may appear comforting, it actually conceals significant skill gaps. An improved strategy is to identify the areas in which employees struggle.
- Which workflow causes the most errors?
- Which step produces the most drop-offs?
- Which teams need additional support?
- Which employees can complete a task independently?
Assima offers analytics that are intended to help organizations see training performance and learner progress at the individual, job, team, and departmental levels.
4. Expand Training in a Large Bank
Seldom do banking reforms involve several hundred employees in a single office. They involve thousands of workers from many departments, areas, responsibilities, and languages. This makes maintaining standard training challenging.
Instead of starting from scratch with each lesson, a simulation-based approach can assist businesses in producing reusable training materials. According to Assima, its platform facilitates multilingual and scalable training, and its cloning technique enables enterprises to adapt training as applications change. When software is updated frequently, that becomes very useful.
The Proof: How This Appears in Real Life
A feature list is not the best defense of a transformation solution. It is the result of organizations using it in practice. Assima’s customer outcomes offer a number of helpful illustrations.
npower: £3 million in training expenses avoided
The UK energy business npower had to train about 4,500 employees when it moved its workforce on SAP. The company claims to have saved £3 million by using Assima as opposed to a standard SAP training customer. Additionally, it cut staffing requirements for new training programs by 80% and shortened the onboarding period for new hires from 33 days to 18 days, or around a 50% reduction. The banking sector itself is not relevant. It is the size and intricacy of the software change.
What Sets Successful Bank Transformations Apart?
Turning every transition into a training endeavor is not the aim. It is to acknowledge that staff adoption and technology implementation are two aspects of the same change.
The banks that increase their chances typically approach change management, competence building, and user preparedness as integral components of the transformation rather than as post-technology operations. Prosci’s findings support this relationship. Stronger change management performance increases the likelihood that a project will meet or surpass its goals.
Conclusion
It is not appropriate to take the 70% number as an outcome. It serves as a caution. Because technology, procedures, people, data, and organizational behavior must all change simultaneously, large changes are challenging. Even with the best technology, a bank may lose value if its employees are unable to use it with confidence. For this reason, training shouldn’t be seen as an afterthought to a transformation plan. It is a component of the strategy for value realization.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s Answer Some of Your Questions.
Even when the technology is functional, many fail to provide the anticipated business benefit because people find it difficult to adapt new workflows and systems.
Before going live, Assima uses realistic software simulations to assist staff develop practical skills, and after launch, it offers in-app guidance.
It helps employees gain confidence and minimize errors prior to go-live by allowing them to safely practice real workflows without compromising live systems.
Instead of depending solely on training completion rates, banks can assess competency, task execution, mistakes, and problem areas.
