Back in the 1980’s an established computer company, Applied Computer Techniques or ACT, wanted to crush a young upstart called ‘Apple.’ So, they renamed their computer Apricot. This copycat strategy was not much of a success, Mitsubishi Electronics bought them in the early 1990’s as a competitive domestic play at NEC eventually shutting down the brand altogether. Maybe not the smartest move by ACT. Fast forward 30 years and a young upstart made its way to the market and its consumers. Founded in 2015, Lemonade has grown to become one of the leading InsurTech companies across the world. But how does a fairly young company compete with various ...
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Preface As a follow-up to our previous blog, “Can the White Walker Ghouls at Bloomberg Be Stopped”? We outline NET(net)’s Top 5 reasons why we believe the Bloomberg empire are ‘the walking dead’ and will soon fall. Intro Since 1982, Bloomberg has enjoyed a virtual monopoly on Wall Street, with a stranglehold on the information and technology needed to be a viable securities buyer. That virtual monopoly is coming to an end, but the folks at Bloomberg have not realized it yet. This is why we are reaching out to you folks who spend the massive amounts of money to pay for those Bloomberg devices and services, which are now outrageously ...
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While researching for this article on Treasury Management Systems (TMS) and with the 2020 tax season around the corner, I was wondering where the word “treasury” came from. It derives from the French word “tresorie” and it was first used in a business context by the The Bank of Scotland in 1658. In a more recent setting, it reminded me of former con man, check forger and imposter, Frank Abignale, who was memorialized by Leonardo DiCaprio and chased by Tom Hanks as an FBI agent in the movie Catch Me If You Can. A Houston Police Chief once said about him: "Frank Abagnale could write a check on toilet paper, drawn on the Confederate States ...
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Table of Contents: Introduction Background Market Summary Current Market Conditions Use Case Competitive Market Government Regulation Bloomberg News Fossil AI's Role in Trading Bloomberg in Disruption Loss of Customer Trust Failure to Innovate Instant Bloomberg Arrogance Help Intro – Here’s How You Can Save 30-93% on your Bloomberg Costs The name Bloomberg conjures up images of the Night King himself, but also of the market dominance in the Financial Services industry, of its flagship product, the Bloomberg Terminal. Just whispering the Bloomberg name also sends shivers up the spines of their customers when they think about the exceedingly ...
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The IT landscape in Financial Services is changing rapidly. Regardless if they want to be industry leaders, fast followers of reactors, the ever-spreading cost base for Financial Services Companies leaves less budget available for capital investments in new technology, driving a vicious cycle of increased operating cost. In the drive to enact transformational change, Financial Services Companies should seek out the benefit from low hanging fruit to reduce current Opex. According to a PwC Global FinTech survey, 81% of CEOs are concerned about the speed of technology change, which is more than any other industry sector. Thousands of startups ...
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Some of you may remember the name Ray Tomlinson. If you’ve never heard of him or can’t recall the name, suffice it to say that he’s had a profound impact on your life. Recently deceased, he is the programmer credited to have invented ‘email’ back in 1971 when he sent an email to himself from one computer to another traveling a network known as ARPANET. Not surprisingly, given Tomlinson invented email, he is also the person who turned the world’s first computer virus “Creeper” into a self-replicating program and then developed a reactionary antivirus program called “Reaper” to delete it. This would prove to be just the first of many thousands ...
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Digital transformation is an actively discussed topic these days, but this was also true in the late 1990s and again in the mid-2000s. In fact, computerizing processes started back in the late 17th century when Leibniz developed a base 2 numerical system only using 0 and 1. With the introduction of the World Wide Web 300 years later, the scope, scale, and speed of technology have fundamentally impacted the effects of digitalization. First websites connected companies and their customers. Companies including Dell were quickly disrupting traditional PC manufacturing companies selling direct to consumers and gaining valuable insights into ...
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William Edwards Deming (1900-1993) is widely acknowledged as the leading thinker in the field of quality. He was a statistician and business consultant who is well known for his “14 Points for Management”. He used to say that ‘management is prediction,’ by which he meant that every decision is also a prediction about the future. The rate of change continues to increase, and as it does the business environment becomes ever more complex. Amidst this complex and uncertain environment, business still has to accomplish something – by getting work done. And getting work done is increasingly outsourced to 3rd parties. In 2017, the global ...
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Kin Hubbard, a humorist and journalist who lived 100 years ago once said “the safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket”. Clearly views are different today. The value of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. financial-services sector alone more than doubled to a whopping $196.5 billion in 2018 from $82.3 billion in 2017. According to a report by White & Case, Financial Institutions M&A Sector 2019 Trends, there are possibilities of mega deals in Europe and that Wall Street behemoths may start flexing their expansion muscles. And when that materializes, a Stock Purchase Agreement (SPA) is the ...
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In 1847, a young doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis was working in a maternity ward where he had discovered that a regime of hand washing could dramatically lower the incidence of childbed fever. Unfortunately, the medical establishment rejected his ideas and the ‘germ theory of disease’ didn't take hold until decades later. The phenomenon is now known as the “Semmelweis reflex”, which is the tendency for people to reject new knowledge that contradicts established beliefs. For Financial Services, “Winter is coming” in terms of Digital Disruption by way of FinTech companies invading their space. What is Digital Transformation? Digital ...
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