Partnering your way to tech success

When it comes to technology, it’s dangerous to go alone.

As tech continues to reshape the business landscape across all sectors, astute businesses are looking to partner with other, larger and more-experienced organisations to make sense of it all.

A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) commissioned by ANZ shows advice on technology is one of the primary drivers for businesses working with partners, with almost half of executives across a broad range of industries nominating tech as the area they have got – and expect to continue getting – the most value out of partnerships.

At ANZ, where we partner with a host of organisations around technology, this comes as no surprise. We know for treasurers to be successful in running low-risk, efficient treasury structures; to run working capital as efficiently as possible; to make payments; and to receive and reconcile receipts quickly with minimal manual intervention, they need great technology to facilitate what they do - and they need their partners to have great technology as well.

The report, Tailored with Technology: Economic Growth, is based on a survey of over 750 executive-level business leaders from around the world, who were quizzed on their expectations around technology’s impact on growth, sustainability and the economy.

The study showed just under 43 per cent of executives in the resources, energy & infrastructure; food, beverage and agriculture; and financial services sectors placed technology as the number-one area for value in partnerships ahead of industry knowledge (37.9 per cent), project funding and business model advice (both 36 per cent).

In the technology sector, over 50 per cent of executives said technology was one of the areas they saw the most current and future partnership value in, ahead of industry knowledge (41.1 per cent) and securing access to infrastructure (36.9 per cent).

Scale

As a large institutional bank ANZ is able to invest in solutions, including those based in technology, that suit complex and larger customers with complex business structures. This allows us to effectively partner with companies with complex structures, supply chains and unique needs.

When we work with partners, we commit to helping solve these problems with another layer of depth. Our host-to-host connectivity is a classic example of that, an area of the market where we offer a strong customer proposition.

What we find at ANZ is, particularly in the transaction banking space, we’re having more conversations with partners around how can we create and correct process efficiency around payments, for example.

Often integrating directly with our clients systems, this inevitably becomes quite a technical conversation - involving customer’s IT as well as treasury departments.

This is also reflected in the ANZ/EIU survey, where executives nominated ongoing development and investment in technology, as well as reputation, as their primary considerations when selecting a technology partner. Just over half – 54 per cent – nominated these as the biggest factor.

The price of the service or goods at 32 per cent and the size of the company at 27 per cent were next on the list.

Impact

For some of our partners, value lies in learning how to truly take advantage of open and existing technology. For example, with Australia’s New Payments Platform, the key for customers is what 24/7 access to payments can unlock for their businesses.

Does that mean you can now release the goods to a customer on a Saturday? Yes - without having to wait to see cleared funds in your account. Can you pay supplier midday and have it clear seconds later? Yes. What does that mean for an entire network - suppliers, customers and the like, if exchanging funds is the key to the next step? Whole supply chain begins to move a lot more quickly.

Indeed, the technology on its own is often not particularly exciting. Where it gets interesting is how partners can work together to apply technology in order to solve problems or drive efficiencies.

Interestingly, the survey showed over 40 per cent of both technology and broader industry executives are willing to work with competitors in order to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome. ANZ participates in partnerships like this on projects such as Lygon, a blockchain-based solution aimed at simplifying the process around bank guarantees.

We know for certain businesses the future will be technology driven. We know they will be more connected through advancing technologies such as API’s and host-to-host connectivity, creating an environment where companies will be increasingly co-dependent.

But it’s unknown what new technologies will emerge to assist businesses in the future and how that will change the landscape. Indeed, the only thing for certain is we don’t know.

Twelve years ago we used the iPhone to send text messages; now it’s the platform for some of the world’s biggest businesses, all facilitated by technology.

For businesses, the question they need to ask is how they can take new technology and adapt it to improve their business process or create new revenue lines. One answer, at least, is to get help from a trusted partner.

Philippa Campbell is Head of Transaction Banking Market Management at ANZ Institutional