I have been reading Jack Trout’s “In Search of the Obvious, the antidote for today’s marketing mess”.

The inside flap contains the context:

“The search for any marketing strategy is the search for the obvious.

We are in an era of killer competition. Category after category is perceived as a commodity. This fact is the central reason the critically important function of marketing is such a mess. It′s also why the average chief marketing officer barely lasts beyond two years in the job.

In this book, marketing guru Jack Trout clears up the confusion that surrounds the marketing profession. Instead of focusing on segmentation or customer retention or search engine optimization or data mining, marketers should be searching for that simple, obvious differentiating idea. Marketers not looking for the obvious had better have a very low price.

This search should begin with what Trout considers the best book ever written on marketing—even though it was published in 1916 and isn′t about marketing.

Entitled Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Business Man, it lays out the five tests of an obvious idea that will lead you to the right marketing strategy for any product”

And here are the Five Tests:

1. The problem when solved will be simple – the obvious is nearly always simple, so simple that generations of people looked at it without seeing it
2. Is the time ripe?
3. Does it check with human nature? i.e. would everyone understand it, without requiring any specialized knowledge?
4. Does it explode in people’s mind? i.e. “why didn’t I think of that?”
5. Put it on paper – does it still make sense when put on paper?

Most successful mashups whether they are produced as apps, widgets or dashboards rely on the above truths.

It goes without saying that technological evolution has fuelled every major business revolution, from agrarian to industrial. But every major business shift was spurred on by innovations that were seemingly unpredictable, yet visible to those with keen foresight. I’ve been reading some of the ideas emanating from the corridors of The Dashis Group recently and they echo with a number of my own thoughts on the subject of Social Business Design:

“Content and data are everywhere. People are creating and curating content like never before. As data storage becomes cheaper, businesses are storing, archiving and mining more data than previously possible. The increasing openness of APIs and data portability make more enterprise data available for both consumers and employees to consume. Free flow of data also allows business partner relationships to be readily analyzed and optimized.”

Exploiting these trends requires more than simply adopting new technologies. It requires forward-looking organizations to embrace change, mapping these trends to the strategic goals of the business.

In February, I wrote a book review on “Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results.” Since ten I have been tracking other commentator’s reviews. I particularly  enjoyed this post on CIO Zone by Lisa Yoon:

“There’s a difference between information and insight, as the book illustrates early on. Information tells you what happened; insight examines how and why it happened. Information is the skinny on what ‘s going on now; insight proposes what actions to take next based on the current situation.”

The reality is we need both – without accurate, recent information, it is extremely unlikely we will gain the level of insight we require as the basis for executive decision-making.

CIO Technology briefing is always a useful source of authoritative comment and helpful in testing the temperature of a market at any one time.

In an article entitled, “Global banking brands need to re-think attitudes to IT”, David Skinner highlights the major issues: “Major world banks have been at the forefront of using IT and technology services for 20 years. They have developed sophisticated procurement functions such as smart sourcing; they were early adopters of the offshoring model as captive owners and users of third parties; they engaged in transformation projects to deliver business process change; and they have tried to manage contracts efficiently by creating large governance teams and innovative scorecards to measure performance.

But at the end of the day have they captured as much value as they could have done from these initiatives? Has being at the forefront and being early adopters of many technologies led to better value for money than other industry sectors?”

To the team at Vision Critical, the answer is, “it depends on what technologies.”

If your organisation would seriously value a technology solution that involves the effortless transfer and total visibility of  the most accurate customer financial information available, that will not only help you save time and money but will also enable you to increase the value of your sales at less risk – all with minimal impact on your IT infrastructure – then Vision Critical would really value a conversation.

I have been reading the latest blogs from gtnews Treasury Insider and I was struck just how cash flow forecasting has stirred up debate and comment on the site, from corporates, banks and consultants alike.

While debates rage on regarding forecast frequency, the involvement (or more specifically lack of involvement) from subsidiaries and the varying mathematical models behind creating successful forecasts, the response concludes that the “accuracy and transparency of cash flow information will be critical.”

A recent blog on the site in connection with this topic stated: “I admit that I am quite confused when it comes to the topic of cash flow forecasting. I have read all the great articles that have been written over the years and tried my best to understand the mathematics behind cash forecasting techniques. I don’t need convincing of the importance of the topic. With reduced liquidity and credit available, it is important to know what cash there is today within the company. It is vital to understand what cash we will have or will need in the short term as well, so we can plan for it.”

As a burning issue, cash flow forecasting just gets hotter.

If Abraham Maslow had constructed a hierarchy of needs for businesses, “intelligence” would surely have been at the base as a fundamental need for survival.

Leveraging a financial organisation’s source data assets is the platform to creating specific ‘views’ to drive the business forward effectively and efficiently from a management perspective. Turning data into information and therefore actionable intelligence (decision making), creates true business transparency at an organisational level.

In the first instance, the key is always to look directly at the source of data origination. With OSMO®, automated, effortless transparency and transfer of financial information from the borrowers’ accounting systems to the individual lender’s systems is satisfying a vital business need.

Transparent business information and intelligence is needed now more than ever. The current economic conditions mean financial organisations need both immediacy and business transparency to make the best decisions.

Financial organisations benefit from knowing how to react rapidly to the changing business environment and market landscape.

Now is the time to find – and act on – the right opportunities for your business. This  requires five key criteria to be met:

1. Visibility: Understand your business opportunities and risks through accurate, automated real-time information

2. Right: Use the data to highlight both risks and opportunities within each ledger and portfolio

3. Now: Opportunity is fleeting, act now not in months. Risk requires early warning – automated data feeds give you access to information ‘news’ as it breaks to help you spot potential incidences of fraud.

4. Cash: Instant information in relation to a company’s cash movements facilitates powerful forecasting – find out more about CashCaster from Vision Critical for your customers and how cash captures opportunity.

5. People: Get everyone in your organisation focused on opportunity through the power of real-time, right-time information.

According to the Economist, the quantity of information in the world is soaring: “mankind created 150 exabytes (billion gigabytes) of data in 2005. This year, it will create 1,200 exabytes.”

Apparently, the video footage from American drone aircraft in 2009 sent back around 24 years’ worth of video footage. They are now saying that this year they expect to produce 10 times as many data streams as their predecessors, and that those in 2011 will produce 30 times as many.

The Economist observes that the data deluge is already starting to transform every aspect of our lives  today, including business, government and science’ The publication comments that: “Merely keeping up with this flood, and storing the bits that might be useful, is hard enough. Analysing it, to spot patterns and extract useful information, is harder still.”

They conclude that “The best way to deal with the drawbacks of the data deluge is, paradoxically, to make more data available in the right way, by delivering  greater transparency in several areas.” Our thoughts exactly.

Data profiling is the detailed examination of the structure, relationships and content of existing information sources to help create an accurate picture of the state of corporate data.

There are three essential  components of a data profiling discovery exercise that, when combined, create a clear picture of the nature and scope of potential data quality issues:

Structure – Do the data patterns match expected patterns? Does the data match the corresponding metadata?

Data – Are the data values complete, accurate and unambiguous? Is the data standardised according to established conventions?

Relationship – Does the data adhere to specified required key relationships across columns and tables? Are there inferred relationships across columns, tables or databases? Is there redundant data?

I was reading an excellent article by Liz Benison of Capgemini at CIO UK today.  This states that the ideas behind Business Information Management (BIM) are common sense and logical and straightforward rather than rocket science. The article then makes the point that those organisations that have pioneered BIM ideas are reaping immense rewards from applying them. The three step sequence described in the feature is as follows:

“Step 1 concerns Business Performance Management. It seeks to provide a consistent framework within which business decisions can be made with confidence, and which enables strategy to be translated into action. It puts the focus on accurate, usable metrics and on pinpointing those who will be responsible for producing, monitoring and achieving them.

Step 2 produces an Information Strategy with the focus on actively managing information to support better decisions. It puts in place processes for the governance of information, for its sharing inside and outside the organisation, and for ensuring that a single, consistent view is gained.

Step 3 involves a Solution Centre approach that ensures business and IT people work together to design, develop, deploy and support information across the organisation. It also addresses any skills deficiencies acting as roadblocks on the effective use of information, and any ‘cultural deficiencies’ impeding appreciation of just how central information is to meeting business objectives.”

The Futurist magazine’s annual Outlook recently published their forecasts for 2010 and beyond. Here are some of the more interesting predictions:

Quantum computers will arrive by 2021 that use spinning electrons rather than silicon-based chips to process data, which will increase speed astronomically.

Search engines will become human-like by 2050. With the “semantic web”, artificial intelligence (AI)-based search engines will comprehend web users enquiries like a human research assistant.

We may not need screens in the future. Mathematicians in Finland have already produced a blueprint for instruments that would project  3-D floating images, using nanomaterials that bend light, and can be focused anywhere.

Architects will harness energy, for the movement of crowds in cities. MIT researchers have created a system of floor blocks that generate power when the blocks rub against each other as people walk on them.

The number of people reading books will actually increase as more books are published digitally, and available on-line.

Robots will be in the home. South Korea has mandated a robot in every home by 2020, and Japan hopes to accomplish this by 2015.

Virtual education will become mainstream by 2015, and may replace traditional education by 2030.

People will  create Avatars of themselves in significant detail to live way beyond their biological lifetimes.

The power to make things invisible may be soon at hand. Optical cloaking, bending light will be perfected, rendering far away objects invisible.

The Prime Minister announced today that £200m from the UK Innovation Investment Fund (UKIIF) will be used to benefit digital, life sciences and advanced manufacturing businesses.

This follows an announcement last month that £125m from the UKIIF will be invested in low carbon and clean tech sectors, bringing the total UKIIF investment to £325m.

The UKIIF today completed first closing on this £200m UK Future Technologies Fund with fund managers the European Investment Fund (EIF). EIF have raised £100m to match Government funding. They will now make their first investments in UK venture funds, investing in technology-based businesses where there are significant growth opportunities, driving the UK economy forward and creating highly skilled jobs.

Speaking to the Global Investment Conference, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said:

“Our new £325 million Innovation Investment Fund – launched as part of Building Britain’s Future – shows our commitment to the industries and the technologies that will create the skilled jobs of the future.

“This fund, seeded by the Government, is bringing private venture capital to growing enterprises. It is already providing £125 million of funding to high tech, low carbon businesses. From today, a further £200 million will be available for life sciences, digital and advanced manufacturing.”

Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson said:

“Despite a tough market, the UK Innovation Investment Fund goes from strength to strength. Private funds have matched the Government’s investment and money can now flow into promising technology companies. This is just the boost these companies need as the economy returns to growth.”

The UK Innovation Investment Fund was announced last June by the Prime Minister as part of the Government’s strategy for Building Britain’s Future. The European Investment Fund and Hermes Private Equity and were each confirmed as fund of fund managers for two separate funds of funds. Backed by £150m investment by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department of Health, it has already attracted private investment to more than match this amount with the total first closing of £325m.

Chief Executive of the European Investment Fund, Richard Pelly said:

“The leveraging of the UK government’s funds and expertise coupled with our experience in the EU venture capital market will help us to support the next generation of high growth, high tech businesses”.

The Government appointed Capital for Enterprise Limited (CfEL) to advise on the development of the UKIIF and to lead the process of selecting and appointing the investment fund managers. CfEL negotiated the fund with EIF as part of the Government’s continuing drive to support young British businesses.

The UKIIF will target small growing businesses, start ups and spin outs including pre-profit and pre-revenue stages of development.

Evidence shows that venture capital-backed companies significantly out perform other companies in terms of their ability to create wealth and generate the spill-over benefits including export performance and the creation of high skilled jobs vital to the economy.

We are awaking to a new world order marked by a wave of expectation (if not regulation) requiring greater transparency, more self-sufficient customers with rising expectations, and greater competition from traditional and non-traditional players.

According to a recent Accenture survey of bank executives and private equity firms, the winners in financial services by 2012 will improve the customer experience, reduce non-strategic costs, optimise their pricing and overcome vulnerabilities to risk.

The recent interest among banks in core platform transformation is being driven by factors such as emerging foreign competitors, direct non-traditional (online)
financiers and M&A activity.

Accenture say that banks should start the transformation process by assessing what benefits and savings can be derived from their core platform architecture – determining, for example, how they can lay the infrastructure to enable the selling of bundled products and otherwise increase share of market and share of wallet. They added that banks also need a well-defined release strategy that balances speed of implementation with delivery risk and cost.

Accenture has found that some organisations opt for the “big bang” approach, in which they effectively cut over to all new systems at once. Others find it more appropriate to break up the effort into manageable releases—by product, customer group, branch or other capabilities—to reduce operational and delivery risk.

To fend off growing competition, banks’ technology platforms must also enable them to have a single view of their customers so that they can interact with them more efficiently and profitably.

There’s a new book hot off the press: Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results by Thomas Davenport, Jeanne G. Harris (both of Competing On Analytics fame) and Robert Morison. The sequel to Competing On Analytics, CIO Insight magazine has named the original book, one of the all-time “Top 15 Most Groundbreaking Management Books”.

The book focuses on the big picture where better decisions drive outstanding performance, improve competitiveness and help organisations differentiate themselves from the competition. It puts the ‘business’ into ‘business information’.

The book, which is case study rich, is intended to be an practical and implementation-focused guide that describes a five-step model for deploying and succeeding with analytical initiatives.

Five factors are presented as being critical if an organisation is to succeed at ‘doing analytics’. The authors group use the acronym DELTA (the Greek letter that signifies “change” in an equation):

D for accessible, high-quality data

E for an enterprise orientation

L for analytical leadership

T for strategic targets

A for analytical talent

Although not exclusively devoted to the financial crisis by any means,  there are  chapters that feature some commentary on the role of analytics in the financial services industries.

With calls for improved risk management, transparency and integrity in every boardroom, data governance is now a business imperative.

There is an inherent need for the modern financial services organisation to break the dominance of the business silos which hamper positive cultural and technical change.

Data management strategy is now a paramount consideration since it directly affects profitability and sustainability. Minimising risk and improving the integrity, speed and accuracy of information transfer and retrieval is critical to success.

The data management landscape now features technology where manual intervention and the possibility of error-risk can be eliminated. This not only allows for improved decision-making but will also enable the business to redeploy people to more rewarding and profitable roles.

Information is at the heart of every financial services organisation. As such, it should not be relegated to an administrative function or considered as a low-value, low-priority function in a departmental or divisional backwater.

Isn’t it time that data governance was brought to the top of the board agenda, if not for the sake of compliance, for the welfare of the enterprise?

The Five C’s form the underlying criteria for most types of loan: Capacity, Collateral, Capital, Conditions, and Character.

Capacity – does the applicant have sufficient income from their revenue streams to make the payment?

Collateral – are there assets that can be used if the borrower defaults? If so, the secured collateral is then sold by the lender to satisfy the debt.

Capital – do the business owners have their own money invested in the business? With more money invested, the borrower will work harder to ensure payments are made.

Conditions – do the current economic conditions have a negative or positive impact on payment?

Character – what is the applicant’s nature?  What is the background of the directors of the borrower’s business? What is their track record? What is the level of trust?

The first of these criteria, ‘Capacity’, is fundamental to the credit equation. Vision Critical enables lenders to identify if a business is right to move from conventional funding to asset based lending and the all-important effect on the cash flow and funds flow.

Through OSMO®, they can identify immediately whether a business is buying or selling more than it needs for its trading and if sales are being pre-invoiced or fresh air.

The ability to interact real-time confers many benefits. It escalates the transaction process and has dramatic implications for the speed of decision-making, both for the customer and for the financial services company.

Harnessing real-time analytical capabilities with enterprise transactional systems allows you to observe current situations and respond appropriately by:

- Predicting what customers need and want on a more personalised level
- Understanding how to maximise the availability of funds at the individual customer level
- Determining how to cost-effectively allocate marketing, sales and service resources
- Measuring the effectiveness of resource allocation decisions
- Creating product and services bundles based on behavioural and transactional information
- Driving intelligent decision-making across channels and contact points
- Aligning value delivered to customers with value generated from customer relationships.

Real-life decisions supported by real-time information. Now that’s really useful.

Just because they’re shinier, Twitter and Facebook often grab all of the media attention for being social networking powerhouses, which for B2C marketing they are!

However, with more than 55 million users (in over 200 countries, representing 170 industries) LinkedIn is the world’s largest online business social network. From a B2B financial marketing perspective, having a presence on LinkedIn can prove instrumental in building valuable contacts and influencing your target audiences – from prospects and potential employees to industry peers.

Here are just a few practical ways you can use the rich functionality of LinkedIn for your business:

Complete your profile. Include previous jobs, education history and upload a photo of yourself. Use your industry keywords throughout – so search engines can pick up on them.

Upload your existing contact list. This will tell you which people in your contact database are already members. These are the first people to connect with.

Find contacts who are already on LinkedIn. Create a mindmap on paper of the previous companies you have worked for, clients that you knew well but have lost touch with and key partners. Then write down the names of key people under those headings and invite them to connect.

Target specific companies. Search for contacts by industry, interest group, job function, or location.

Use the ‘get introduced through a connection’ feature. Ask your first-level contacts for relevant introductions to their first-level contacts. People are much more likely to trust you when you come with an endorsement from someone they already trust.

Research your prospects before meeting them. You can learn a great deal by reading individual profiles. This can give you great hooks for dialogue.

Give and solicit recommendations within your network. Ask your clients to write a recommendation that will appear on your profile and on theirs. Write recommendations for other people, even if they haven’t requested it.

Find or create Groups. You can find key contacts within your targeted industry by using LinkedIn’s Search Groups function. Taking an active part in forums will increase your networking opportunities and enable you to build your contact base and your authority within the group.

Pose questions and answer others’ questions in the Answers section.
Gain immediate views from experts within a sector. Identify if there are industry experts you need to connect with. Also, providing full and helpful answers also positions you as an authority.

Use the special applications. Integrate blogs, Twitter updates, slideshare and even undertake surveys with your groups.

Update your status. Keep top of mind by linking out to upcoming events, blog posts, or your site. Always include something new that you’re doing. This will appear on your various Groups’ emails.

A number of people have asked me where the name OSMO® comes from.

We feel that the scientific term, ‘Osmosis’, is a powerful way of describing the extraction and transfer of customer financial information with effortless transparency.

One dictionary definition is the “diffusion of fluid through a semipermeable membrane from a solution with a low solute concentration to a solution with a higher solute concentration until there is an equal concentration of fluid on both sides of the membrane.”

The fact that the information sent from the borrower’s accounts package is  equal (identical) to the lender’s information following the transfer, highlights the accuracy and efficiency of the process.

The effortless nature of the assimilation or absorption also works in a more familiar context, e.g. “she learned French by osmosis while residing in Paris.”

For the want of sounding like Stephen Fry in an episode of QI, continuing with the etymological theme, Osmosis has its roots in the Greek, ‘endosmos’, ‘to push’.

How do you tell when a situation is right for a partnership? The longest-lived partnerships occur where each party brings something to the table that the other lacks. Here are some situations when it makes sense to partner, where for example:

A business offers a unique or desirable product but lacks access to the other’s specific niche market by ’sector’ or ‘geography’.

A potential partner has a large customer base or access to a target market but needs the product in order to complete its own offering, add significant value and, therefore, gain a competitive edge.

A business has a niche skill-set or provides a highly specialised service. Often it makes sense to outsource a function to specialists so you can focus on your core competencies.

One company is trying to break into a new market or expand, and wants to keep its capital costs or staffing costs down. For instance, one company may offer a technology product and needs consulting help for a combined software/hardware/solution sale. Instead of hiring consultants, it might partner with a group of consultants who are already skilled and looking for products to market. That way it keeps its headcount and staffing costs down.

A company can screen and evaluate acquisition targets. This is usually done by larger companies with an acquisitive appetite – a “try before you buy” strategy.

I read some inspirational tech quotes today. I thought it would be good to share them with you:

Not all problems have a technological answer, but when they do, that is the more lasting solution.
Andrew Grove

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.
Steve Ballmer

I believe that this notion of self-publishing, which is what Blogger and blogging are really about, is the next big wave of human communication. The last big wave was Web activity. Before that one it was e-mail. Instant messaging was an extension of e-mail, real-time e-mail.
Eric Schmidt

We have technology, finally, that for the first time in human history allows people to really maintain rich connections with much larger numbers of people.
Pierre Omidyar

To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.
Steve Jobs

Information and communications technology unlocks the value of time, allowing and enabling multi-tasking, multi-channels, multi-this and multi-that.
Li Ka Shing

Today, more than ever, transparency is critical to the provision of business information and intelligence. There are five fundamental qualitative characteristics of information transparency:

Materiality: Material items should be capable of identification at a detailed / granular level.

Accuracy and reliability: Such information should be verifiable and neutral (i.e., free from error or bias).

Comprehensiveness: Information should be comprehensive and in a suitable form for aggregation, consolidation and assessment.

Relevance and timeliness
To be useful, information must be relevant to the decision-making needs of users to enable assessment of expected risks and returns. To be relevant, information should be delivered with sufficient frequency and timeliness to give a meaningful picture of the activity in question.

Comparability
Another essential characteristic of transparent information is comparability. It should be  possible to compare information across sectors, geographies, timescales and by relative trends in financial position and performance.

OK, I know it’s Friday but I couldn’t help thinking of OSMO® as an ‘Avatar’ when I saw the movie poster again this morning.

For those who haven’t seen it,  the film Avatar is a stunning and vivid depiction of an entire fantasy world unimaginable without serious help from a visionary director, 1,000 special effects artists, a $300M budget and a pair of 3D glasses.

However, there’s one feature of the movie that’s more realistic than you may think: the idea of using avatars in the workplace. In the film, protagonist Jake Sully, a paraplegic ex-Marine, is assigned to field duty assuming the form of an alien Na’vi on the moon Pandora.

As strange as it may sound, thousands of real-world employees are beginning to use avatars as part of their regular jobs. Research has shown how employees at American companies like IBM, Accenture, Cisco, State Farm, Intel, BP and Wells Fargo log into virtual worlds and use avatars to brainstorm with colleagues, recruit employees, sell to customers, attend leadership training, manage programs, direct operation centers, and collaborate with company groups around the world.

They  occupy avatar bodies to collaborate, compete, diagnose, search, inspect, calculate, audit, analyse, schedule, organise and communicate.

So don’t be surprised to see OSMO at a virtual meeting soon!

The poem, “The Rock”, by T.S. Eliot says something quite profound about the data-information-knowledge-wisdom (DIKW) hierarchy developed by Russell Ackoff.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in the information?

So, what is “knowledge” in the DIKW pyramid? For Ackoff, knowledge transforms “information into instructions.” Milan Zeleny, who came up with the hierarchy a couple of years before Ackoff, says that knowledge is like the recipe that lets you make bread out of the information-ingredients of flour and yeast (with data as the atoms of the ingredients).

The European Committee for Standardisation’s official “Guide to Good Practice in Knowledge Management” says: “Knowledge is the combination of data and information, to which is added expert opinion, skills and experience, to result in a valuable asset which can be used to aid decision making.”

At Vision Critical, our emphasis is on knowledge being “actionable” because of the business context, and on knowledge being a refinement of information because that’s how our client’s extract real value from data.

In markets such as Asset Based Lending, we have observed that commitment to organisational and process-driven capabilities to see vital strategic projects through is the most difficult for a competitor to duplicate. These lenders are dedicated to delighting clients, they engage employees, they establish reputations amongst their shareholders and they have excellent client lifetime value.

These capabilities essentially become the lender’s identity. They define what it is good at doing and, ultimately, what the company and the brand embodies. Here are eight of the most basic capabilities an organisation needs to emphasise:

•    Talent: attracting, motivating, and retaining competent and committed people to take forward a project and implement it.

•    Speed: making important changes happen fast.

•    Shared mindset: ensuring that customers and employees have positive images of and experiences with the organisation.

• Accountability: the disciplines that result in high performance and ensuring ROI plans are met fully.

•    Collaboration: working across boundaries to ensure both efficiency and leverage.

•    Learning: absorbing and spreading business intelligence with impact.

•    Leadership: embedding decision-makers throughout the organisation who deliver the right results in the right way.

•    Inventiveness: leveraging new technologies to facilitate process optimisation and save time and money.

I’ve just finished writing my regular column for this month’s Business Money magazine, this time on the topic of “2020 Vision – The Next Decade”. However, in order to accommodate the sub-headings required in the interests of clarity, I have had to ‘lose’ a paragraph .

I have retrieved the ‘lost paragraph’ and have posted it in full below as well as  expanding on a few of the discussion points it raises:

Many comparison sites and product directories scour the Web in order to assemble data on particular topics. They aggregate the data and present it in a  templated ‘at-a-glance’ format to facilitate customer choice.

These ‘accumulated pools of data’ have the potential to form the raw material for alternative information-based business opportunities. Importantly, these by-products may yield powerful, actionable information for even more profitable applications.

The one caveat here is that the sword can cut both ways; today’s Web-based aggregators which lack strong brands and value propositions may well find themselves aggregated tomorrow.

However, by way of illustration, McKinsey describes a scenario as to how these same principles can be applied very successfully to proprietary information: “A retailer using digital cameras to prevent shoplifting could also analyze the shopping patterns and traffic flows of customers through its stores and could also use these insights to improve its layout or placement of promotional displays. It might also sell the data to its vendors so that they could use real observations of consumer behavior to reshape their merchandising approaches.”

Rich Barton, the founder of Zillow,  describes the above process somewhat prosaically as shining “a light up into the dark reaches of the supply curve.”

What information do you have that once ‘repurposed’ would illuminate a new business opportunity or solve a business information need for your clients?

Text-based payments support for the earthquake relief efforts in Haiti has been nothing short of phenomenal.  The donations were made simply by texting “Haiti” to a special number and this then shows up as a charge on the mobile phone bill.

The proof of the power of ‘easy’ is that by January 15th, $11 million in donations had been received via text donations alone.  At $10 per transaction, that comes out to an astonishing 366,000 mobile payment transactions per day.

In an on-line recording of a Q&A session, Calvin Grimes, banking technology provider Fiserv’s mobile solutions manager, made the point that, “if use of your mobile device to pay for something is harder than pulling out a piece a plastic, consumers aren’t going to adopt it”.  Calvin goes on to state that they will need some form of a value-add (such as mobile coupons or reward redemptions) to carry mobile payments forward – which makes a lot of sense.

It will be interesting to see if the current wave of text-based donations ultimately serves as a “tipping point”, ushering in a broader awareness of mobile payments.

The parallels to the B2B financial sector are valid. The ability to use existing interfaces makes mobile payments incredibly easy, with rapidly-spiking adoption as a result.

Adoption of mobile payments approaches that require customers to buy, install, learn and acclimatise to new mobile devices, software and more complex interfaces will obviously take that much longer. Simplicity, as so often the case, is the key to widespread market adoption.

Thank you for your encouraging comments regarding our New Year’s advertisement in Business Money. We’re glad you enjoyed it as much as we did dreaming it up and hope you will join us in following the further adventures of OSMO® in the months ahead.

Next month, Vision Critical’s OSMO® character goes from keeping in shape to preparing for the 6 Nations. Please keep a look out for our rugby-themed ad – here’s a preview of the wording:

“Want to improve your information handling?
More accurate passing and receiving from OSMO®

As an Asset Based Lender in today’s economy, you need to be able to run with the new business ball without being tripped up by increased risk and operational costs.

In the competitive scrum, you need to drive your business forward by lending more. That means passing key information to you when it matters most, enabling you to read the game ahead. Tackling the challenges that are vital to your success with reports you can trust.

In a tough game, you need a safe pair of hands. Contact the Vision Critical team now to find out how OSMO® can power your success.”

According to a report on B2B Marketing Online today, over 70 per cent of European firms plan to adopt cloud-based B2B integration services in the next year as a means of reducing costs and infrastructure.

The study of over 300 senior IT managers by Sterling Commerce, an AT&T company, found that more than a third of those surveyed said cloud computing will reduce errors resulting from manual processes, adding that manual processing created the largest obstacle in their current B2B integration capabilities. Over 50 per cent of respondents also said they hope to drive down operating costs through better use of IT staff and better cost predictability.

Interesting the above key competitive advantages associated with the newly adopted cloud-based integration, mirror those of Vision Critical’s OSMO® software, highlighting a strong alignment with the most advanced thinking on B2B strategy.

“In today’s economy, companies are becoming acutely aware they need to optimise their B2B integration capability to reduce costs today and become more agile for competitive growth tomorrow”, comments David Carmichael, senior product marketing manager at Sterling Commerce.

“Achieving this at a time when few boards are prepared to entertain a project without a guarantee of an ROI, typically within a 12-month window, the ability to move from a capital expense to an operational one makes cloud-based B2B integration compelling.”

Gartner estimates that worldwide cloud services revenue will increase from $46.4bn (£28.7bn) in 2008, to $150.1bn (£93bn) in 2013. More specifically for integration as a service (IaaS), Gartner estimates that companies worldwide spent more than $1.5bn (£0.9bn) on IaaS and B2B integration outsourcing in 2009.

It was in November 2008, that we announced the fact that we had been granted a Community Trade Mark (CTM) for OSMO®. A Community Trade Mark (CTM) is any trademark which has been registered in the European Union as a whole (rather than on a national level within the EU). While other intellectual property rights have a limited duration, registered trade marks, such as OSMO® can last indefinitely.

It is with interest that I read that according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. intellectual property is now worth more than $5 trillion. Indeed, software and other intellectual property can be the most valuable assets for many technology and media companies. The competitive edge of emerging technology-related companies is their underlying intellectual property. It is said that in some cases (such as the Coca Cola trademark), the value of a company’s intangible assets far outweighs the value of its tangible assets.

Not surprisingly, asset-based lending has reflected this trend. Beyond securing obligations of companies seeking financing with more traditional collateral (such as debtors or stock), to provide the level of headroom required on larger deals, it is reported that some lenders are increasingly securing loans based upon intangible assets such as patents or copyrights, or even computer databases or the rights of software licensees and licensors. It just goes to show how tangible these intangibles can be.

Nearly two-thirds of chief executive officers (CEOs) believe that IT will play a crucial role in their business strategy during the anticipated economic upturn, a new survey has showed.

Research from technology advisory firm Gartner revealed that, out of the 200 British and American business executives questioned, 43 per cent anticipate increasing their post-recession IT investment.

45 per cent will maintain the same level of spending while 13 per cent said they were contemplating cutting the amount, Gartner’s study from the third quarter of the year showed.

Mark Raskino, research vice-president and Gartner fellow, said: “It is critical that chief information officers (CIOs) review business leaders’ rapidly changing tactical business priorities and often unstated new expectations of where IT can help as the economy turns.

“CIOs are in a good position to have that conversion right now. They should also take advantage of business leaders’ relatively positive attitude towards IT investment during budget negotiations.”

He added that the findings indicated a ‘warmer’ attitude towards IT, which CIOs should look to take advantage of during 2010.

Previous research from Gartner predicted that IT investment will rise by 3.3 per cent from 2009 to reach $3.3 trillion during next year.

On 30 November, the European Commission published a report of expert group’s opinions on e-invoicing. The group was designated to design a European e-invoicing framework which could contribute to the EU’s final decision; with particular interest needed on the requirements of small and medium sized enterprises.

E-invoicing, short for electronic invoicing is the electronic transfer of billing and payment information, via the Internet or other electronic means between the parties – businesses, the public sector, and consumers – involved in commercial transactions.

Compared to paper invoices, e-Invoices may offer huge advantages for companies – they are said to be easier to process, they reach the customer faster and can be stored centrally at very low cost. A recent report predicts potential annual benefits of up to €40 billion across Europe in the business-to-business field alone.

Main benefits of electronic invoicing

• Quicker retrieval of money from customers by reducing the time an invoice or payment is in the post;
• Reduced printing and postage costs;
• Processing is quicker and cheaper, as the information in electronic invoices can be fed directly into a company’s payments and accounting systems;
• Lower storage costs.
• Main obstacles to the wider use of electronic invoicing

E-Invoices are produced in a wide range of formats and according to many different standards. This hinders the smooth transfer of an e-invoice from one part to another and prevents the full benefits and cost savings of e-invoicing from being realised;

• Variation in national rules which govern the validity and acceptability of e-invoices in legal, financial and administrative terms. This makes their use in cross-border transactions within the EU difficult;
• Many potential users have concerns about the security of e-invoicing systems and the potential for misrepresentation and fraud.

The report, which does not necessarily represent the views of the Commission, will be open for consultation until 26 February 2010.

I was talking with a mathematician and programmer friend over the weekend about the advantages of Straight Through Processing (STP).

He described it as an initiative used by companies in the financial world to optimise the speed at which transactions are processed. This is performed by allowing information that has been electronically entered to be transfered from one party to another in the settlement process without manually re-entering the same pieces of information repeatedly over the entire sequence of events.

The purpose of STP is to create efficiencies, eliminate mistakes, and reduce costs having machines process trades instead of people. As technology has improved, and as financial services companies struggle to reduce costs, the popularity of STPs has increased substantially.

He then went on to list the benefits as follows:

• Greater visibility, transparency and consistency of processes
• Higher efficiency of processes through standardization and replication
• Improved quality of processes through implementation of proven methodologies and best practices
• Improved ability to track and manage processes
• Redeployment of individuals into income generative roles
• Enhanced customer service
• Redirection of cost savings to business-building strategic initiatives
• Competitive advantage

Sounds like a familiar concept to you? I thought so!

Global IT spending by financial services firms is set to reach $357.4 billion in 2010, an increase of 2.9% over 2009, as the tentative recovery picks up, according to research from Celent.

The figure compares to a 2.5% decline in growth in 2009 and will be followed by more robust spending on IT products and services of 4.9% CAGR from 2010 to 2012.

Firms in Europe and North America account for 36% and 33.1%, respectively, of the global IT investments by financial services institutions. Asia Pacific accounts for 25.2%, with Latin America and Africa making up the remaining 5.7%.

Among all regions, the fastest growth will be seen in financial services institutions in Asia Pacific, with IT spending increasing at 5.1% in 2010 and a CAGR of 6.2% from 2010 to 2012, when it is expected to reach $101.7 billion.

Spending in North America and Europe will climb more slowly, at a CAGR of around 4.5% from 2010 to 2012. Latin America and Africa are expected to grow at a relatively modest rate of 3.2% with spending in this region of $21.2 billion in 2010.

Spending on banking activities accounts for the largest portion of total IT outlay – nearly 50%, or $163 billion in 2010. Spending on insurance and securities and investments activities are expected to reach $103.9 billion and $70.1 billion, respectively.

As more and more new technology-driven solutions emerge, lenders are arguably now serving as solutions integrators, bringing various components together to provide a seamless experience for their B2B clients. With that comes more, not less, accountability to the customer.

By focusing on the client experience and combining a consolidated information management view with end-to-end client servicing,  lenders will continue to reinforce their relevance to our clients. In the current economic environment, we see our role as supporting those progressive lenders to  leverage innovation to help them drive efficiency, reduce risk, optimise operational and sales performance, and maximise working capital availability.

As solutions become increasingly driven by technology, the value of lenders’ relationships with their clients keeps changing. It is vital to remember that technology solutions will never replace the need for relationship management or the human touch, but may in fact reinforce the need for deeper client engagement.

Technology will undoubtedly play a larger and larger role behind the scenes, which means lenders must continue to focus on maintaining human interaction with clients. Innovation can ultimately prove to be a powerful means for deepening these critical relationships. Having access to accurate, transparent real-time information allows you to anticipate client needs and solve problems pro-actively.

The Surrey snows have forced me to get some serious reading done. This weekend I read a fascinating business book with a fairly uncompromising title that promised much and to an extent at least delivered it: “The Upside of the Downturn: Ten Management Strategies to Prevail in the Recession and Thrive in the Aftermath.”

Its premise is that some businesses – and some people – will emerge from this downturn stronger and more dominant than when it started. Others will weaken and fade. It all depends on critical choices they make right now.

Geoff Colvin, one of America’s most respected business journalists, says even the deepest recession has an upside. The best managers know conventional thinking won’t help them win in tough times. They’re taking smart, practical steps that will not only keep them strong, but will also distance them from the pack for years to come.

The dozens of top-performing leaders Colvin interviewed reject the common view that slashing costs and firing employees are all that matter. They see the recession as a rich opportunity to reinvent their organisations and lay the groundwork for future growth.

Colvin’s ten solidly grounded strategies are designed to increase competitiveness and build  long-term value.

Here are some highlights:

* Reset priorities. Easy to say, harder to do. Pursuing the lofty goals set in good times can be disastrous now.
* Reevaluate people and steal some good ones. Mass layoffs are a tempting way to cut costs, but great companies often find smarter alternatives. And if your competitors are dumb enough to fire their best people, grab them.
* Keep investing in the core. Trim the fat from your budgets but not the muscle. The best companies actually increase some spending in a recession, funding the areas that make them unique and valuable.
* Don’t rush to cut prices. Many companies assume they must – yet the long-term damage often outweighs the short-term boost.

Colvin shows how these strategies work, using examples of major companies that have applied them with inspiring results.

There are obviously many more strategies that are being adopted with real success right now. We’d be really interested to hear more about your success stories.

Bruce Raine, President of IPBS commented “Continuing to invest in efficient integrated IT systems makes sense even during an economic downturn.” he says.

By carefully implementing more efficient systems, financiers will benefit from “lower transaction processing costs, increased accuracy and reduced operational risk.  By eliminating unnecessary manual processing significant cost savings can also be generated.  Resources can be redeployed to other client relationship activity and there is the possibility to reduce headcount through natural attrition without affecting service levels.”

Investing in up to date modern technology that can deliver exactly what the customer needs is an essential step in developing a lean IT infrastructure that can reduce costs, increase efficiency, mitigate risk and ensure financiers simply remain competitive. Those that continue to review their business processes and update their systems will reap the benefits. Costs will be contained and any future business expansion can be accommodated using existing systems without the need to increase staffing overheads.

Whilst organisations are under pressure to reduce costs, it is important that this is done without impacting on the performance of the core business. The current environment offers an opportunity for financial organisations to seek our new solutions and assess areas of weakness.  By continuing to research appropriate technology, businesses can put themselves in the best possible position to thrive as the economic recovery builds momentum.

It accurately predicted the rise of the home computer and the mobile phone. But it also suggested that plastic grass and robotic secretaries would be commonplace in the modern world.

Most people of a ‘certain’ age will remember ‘Tomorrow’s World’, a technological BBC news show that brought us stories of the latest developments and the ways in which our lives would be changed in the future. It was a sad day when this show was cancelled, since it rewarded viewers with some tantalising glimpses into the future.

It is vital that those who develop and manage technology in the financial services sector have an eye to the future in such a fast moving environment. Today, we are faced with a wide variety of distributed media in order to glean information, including blogs, user generated content and video.

So many new technologies are ready to make a big impact this year. Some of them will be brand new, but many have been gestating and are now ready to hatch. It has never been more important to keep up with developments. What do you think is coming our way in 2010? Please let us know and join in the conversation.

If 2009 served to highlight the shortcomings of governments and entire industries, 2010 is centered on the solution, which can only be determined by the implementation of transparent practices. I have featured some bon mots on the topic below that lend a variety of fresh perspectives on Vision Critical’s concept of ‘effortless transparency’:

“Greater transparency is an unstoppable force. It is the product of growing demands from everybody with an interest in any corporation – its stakeholder web – and of rapid technological change, above all the spread of the Internet, that makes it far easier for firms to supply information… With greater transparency will come greater accountability and better corporate behaviour. Rather than engage in futile resistance to it, firms should actively embrace transparency and rethink their values and generally get in better shape.”
Don Tapscott, The Naked Corporation

“Transparency is vitally important in what can be a very opaque process in Brussels. We’ve decided to open this up so people can understand the issues.”
Horacio Gutierrez

“With the Internet world, we can have people make both sides of the (lending) market, bringing more transparency and efficiency. It can be both more capitalistically efficient and socially beneficial.”
Chris Larsen

Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much, it’s the transparency that counts.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine

“Our objective is to deepen and expand the market, reduce (price) instability, and boost transparency and efficiency.”
Darmin Nasution

“Along the way, there also have been major innovations and probably his best one is transparency: Recognizing the need to communicate continuously with markets in deciding how policy will be formulated.”
David Jones

“The condition in which nothing is hidden. This is an essential condition for a free market in securities. Prices, the volume of trading, and factual information must be available to all.”
Finance Dictionary

“A basic tenet of a healthy democracy is open dialogue and transparency.”
Peter Fenn

“I think it’s a good thing that there are bloggers out there watching very closely and holding people accountable. Everyone in the news should be able to hold up to that kind of scrutiny. I’m for as much transparency in the newsgathering process as possible.”
Anderson Cooper

“A comprehensive range of measures was agreed to increase transparency of financial activities, ensure better international supervision and prevent excessive risk taking. It is crucial this plan is implemented.”
Alistair Darling

“It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.”
Barack Obama

Have you ever been in a conference room with a white board and someone using a marker and talking innovation? It all looks so easy. The stock price is £4, we’re going to drive it to £80 in two years – let’s not get bogged down in the detail – who has some bright ideas?

James A. Gardner has plenty of bright ideas in his book, “Innovation and the Future Proof Bank” and one of the most basic is that ideas are nowhere near enough for innovation. His ideas won’t fit on a white board, and they don’t lend themselves to some simple solution.

The former innovation chief at Lloyds TSB bank in London and a sophisticated blogger at BankerVision, he has been working in this innovation business for years. He has recently moved into government and now is a Director in Corporate Information Technology at the Department of Work and Pensions in the UK, where he is accountable for innovation, architecture and strategy.

Here is an excerpt from “Innovation and the Future Proof Bank”: “Controlling change is a mantra for IT organisations in banks. Given the opportunity to avoid a change, most IT Chiefs will do so. Unfortunately, though, almost everything an innovator does is likely to need a system change. This presents the key dilemma for an innovation professional: how to represent a change (which will likely have small short term returns) in a way that avoids it being subordinated by changes which have significant and immediate benefits.”

It isn’t every day that you come across a technology that offers sustainable returns above and beyond the investment timeframe. Yet, you can have OSMO® working for your organisation every day with minimal impact on your IT infrastructure. Which just goes to show: You can introduce radical change to future proof your operations, without the fear generally associated with changing your systems.

The economic tumult of the past two years has affected every facet of corporate operations, including IT.

In McKinsey’s fourth annual survey on information technology strategy and spending, they asked chief information officers (CIOs), chief technology officers (CTOs), other executives in the IT function, and additional C-level executives about their companies’ business technology agendas, the impact of the recession on their IT organisations, and their approaches to developing and executing IT strategies.

Today, we’re looking  forward to the fruits that 2010 will bring – described by technology commentators as ‘IT in the new normal’. Projections for operating budgets follow trends seen in last year’s survey. More than 60 percent of respondents expect IT operating expenses to decline or hold steady, reflecting a continued focus on “resetting” operating costs for an uncertain future.

Expectations for new investments, however, paint a different picture. More than 45 percent of respondents expect to increase investments, while about 20 percent see them holding steady. When there is a payback, it seems businesses are willing to invest; many of these investments are geared toward improving business operations, both to lower costs and improve effectiveness, echoing respondents views on where IT is offering value to the business.

Digging deeper into the data, financial-services firms lead all sectors with their spending and investing plans, a finding that may reflect improving business conditions in that industry. Thirty-three percent of financial-services respondents expect to increase operating expenses in 2010 (up from the 15 percent who expected increases last year), and 61 percent are considering an increase in new investments (up from 40 percent last year).

Vision Critical has the power to tip the balance even more in the favour of financial-services firms – by increasing investment in our technology, lenders will actually reduce their operational costs.

Words from the world of technology and social media are among those picked as the “Words of the Tear 2009″ in a list commissioned by Oxford University Press.

Tweetup – noun: a meeting or other gathering organised by means of posts on the social networking service Twitter. [from tweet + up on the pattern of MEETUP].

Hashtag – noun: a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets.

Tag cloud – noun: a visual depiction of the word content of a website, or of user-generated tags attached to online content, typically using colour and font size to represent the prominence or frequency of the words or tags depicted.

Slashdot effect – noun: the slowing down or crashing of a small website due to a huge increase in traffic when the website is linked to another, much more popular one.

Unfriend/defriend – verb: to remove from one’s ‘friends’ list (e.g. on a social networking website).

Bossnapping – noun: (in France) the prevention of senior managers from leaving company premises for a period of time by their employees, in order to protest about large-scale redundancies and cutbacks.

Zombie bank – noun: a financial institution whose liabilities are greater than its assets, but which continues to operate because of government support.

Geoengineering/ecohacking – noun: the deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that affects the earth’s climate, in an attempt to counteract the effects of global warming.
Jeggings – plural noun: close-fitting leggings made of fabric that resembles denim in appearance [from jeans + leggings].

Minute mentoring – noun: a system of advising aspiring professionals based on the format of speed-dating.

Phantonym – noun: a word that looks as it if means one thing but in fact means something quite different. [from ‘phantom + antonym] (for example fulsome, used by President Obama to mean ‘full’, when in fact it is now chiefly used in reference to excessive flattery).

Staycation – noun: a holiday spent in one’s home country rather than abroad, or one spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions.

Simples – exclamation: used to say that something is very easy to achieve [from the 'compare the meerkat' TV advert].

Great Recession – noun: term for the current recession, modelled on the Great Depression.

Freemium – noun: a business model in which some basic services are provided for free, with the aim of enticing users to pay for additional, premium features or content.

Paywall – noun: a way of blocking access to a part of a website which is only available to paying subscribers.

With 2009, and the decade, drawing to a close, we’ve trawled back over a year’s worth of IT-related quotes to find just which ones really stood out, for the right or wrong reasons.

“In 2010, IT needs to step up and boldly announce to the world, “We have value.” IT is being held hostage by misguided attitudes about the value it can create. It needs to be like the young Caesar, who told his pirate kidnappers that they needed to double the ransom they were asking.”
Thornton A. May

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next 10.”
Bill Gates

“If there’s no hardware or software in the cloud we are so screwed. But it’s not water vapour, all it is, is a computer attached to a network. What are you talking about? I mean, what do you think Google runs on? Do you think they run on water vapour? I mean, cloud? It’s databases and it’s operating systems and its memory and microprocessors and the internet. But all of a sudden, no it’s none of that, it’s the cloud! What are you talking about?”
Oracle chairman and CEO Larry Ellison

“Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.”
Alvin Toffler, Future Shock.

“After changing our passwords, I tried to pass the incident off to my wife … as a teachable moment. To which she deftly replied, ‘Well, it is not my teachable moment. However, it is our money. No more internet banking for you.”
FBI Director Robert Mueller on being banned from online banking by his wife after a (nearly successful) phishing attack.

“The internet today is an open platform where the demand for websites and services dictates success. You’ve got barriers to entry that are low and equal for all comers. And it’s because the internet is a neutral platform that I can put on this podcast and transmit it over the internet without having to go through some corporate media middleman. I can say what I want without censorship. I don’t have to pay a special charge. But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the internet as we know it. They say they want to create high-speed lanes on the internet and strike exclusive contractual arrangements with internet content-providers for access to those high-speed lanes. Those of us who can’t pony up the cash for these high-speed connections will be relegated to the slow lanes … We can’t have a situation in which the corporate duopoly dictates the future of the internet and that’s why I’m supporting what is called net neutrality.”
Barack Obama

In turbulent markets, ‘Organisational Agility’, which Don Sull, a professor of management practice at the London Business School, defines as “the capacity to identify and capture opportunities more quickly than rivals do”, is invaluable.

He continues: “Traditionally, managers have been equated with ship captains, peering through a telescope deep into the future, setting a long-term vision, and proceeding steady as she goes. In the new normal, however, managers must proceed through an impenetrable fog that obscures any view of the future. By building the organisation’s strategic, portfolio, and operational agility, managers can position their companies to succeed, come what may.”

However, none of this is possible without ‘Informational Agility’, the automated provision of accurate and transparent real-time information on which to base business decisions. The organisational and operational benefits include the ability to offer higher levels of funding, to manage your risk more effectively and to reduce operational costs. By being able to get closer to clients, identify areas of concern immediately,  see things before they happen and act more quickly on changing circumstances, OSMO® from Vision Critical delivers true Informational Agility.

Recently, many financial companies have increased the frequency of their strategic and operational reviews and drawn, ad hoc, on different sources of data in order to understand the broader market context. They should not let these practices lapse as the economy recovers. Rather, companies ought to institutionalise the collection of real-time data, supplement these with periodic first-hand observations in the field, and disseminate information widely throughout the organisation. The fundamental premise is that the most reliable source of predictive financial information is within the accounting package.

Why not talk to us to see what can happen when you add Informational Agility to your operational ability?

As financial organisations mature, they often face declining growth as innovation gives way to inertia. In order to achieve consistent levels of growth throughout their corporate lifetimes, firms must attend to existing core businesses while still considering areas they can grow in the future. The three horizons framework featured in the commentary on corporate strategy entitled The Alchemy of Growth, provides a structure for companies to assess potential opportunities for growth, without neglecting performance in the present.

Horizon one represents those core businesses most readily identified with the company name and those that provide the greatest profits and cash flow. Here, the focus is on improving performance to maximise the remaining value. Horizon two encompasses emerging opportunities, including rising entrepreneurial ventures likely to generate substantial profits in the future but that could require considerable investment. Horizon three contains ideas for profitable growth down the road – for instance, small ventures such as research projects, pilot programs, or minority stakes in new businesses.

The Alchemy of Growth seeks to cut through the uncertainty executives face in making their companies grow by drawing lessons from the experiences of 30 of the most successful growth companies. By analysing how successful companies devise and implement growth strategies, the authors found that linking together a series of measured steps in a “staircase” of sequential growth can deliver extraordinary results.

Although culturally suited to a technology solutions oriented organisation, such as Vision Critical, this plate-spinning approach to growth strategy applies equally to the lending environment.   This structured approach offers a lens for positioning growth efforts within your organisation, while staying focused on your core strengths today.

I was reading today’s Metro on the tube and I came across an article, ‘Transforming into a brand new reality’.

It was based on the views of Simon Sankaraya, aka Sanky, a founding partner of interactive agency AllofUs and D&AD Deputy President.

Sanky sees brands getting very excited about an emerging technological trend recently. “Augmented Reality (AR) combines real-world images with computer-generated content on screen,’ he says.  A basic form of it has been in use in broadcast for a while – like when weather reporters stand in front of changing weather maps (lately full of rain clouds).

It made me think of the juxtaposition of the OSMO character within a real world setting – ‘Augmented Reality’ sums up Vision Critical’s new ad campaign perfectly.

At a time where trust and transparency are at the fore of financial communications more than ever before, the use of proof points is now essential to sustaining confidence.

Business Money Editor Bob Lefroy once commented: “It was a master stroke being first to the party with the revolutionary IDeal discounting product, one that makes use of Vision Critical’s real time reconciliation systems. It allows greater exposure levels with much lower administration costs making the product a ferocious competitor in term of flexibility, cost and service.

The figures reflect this. Factoring business is down overall but just look at the discounting numbers with sales and advances up 31% and client numbers up 25%. Average loan size is up 5%, operational efficiency measured by the client/officer ratio has improved 50% since 2002.”

This contained a wide range of proof points. Within the space of a few paragraphs, we learn that:

1. Vision Critical works with BLUE-CHIP CLIENTS.

2. The level of third-party ENDORSEMENT is two-fold, that of the respected editor of the leading industry trade magazine and that of the client.

3. The product was FIRST to market with Vision Critical’s innovative technology.

4. An aggressive MARKET LEADERSHIP position established by messaging such as ‘master stroke’, ‘first to the party’ and ‘ferocious competitor’.

5. The client demonstrates SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANTAGE, as evidenced by the ‘revolutionary’ product reference (n.b. this approach can also be applied to patents, unique processes, industry secrets and guarantees).

6. The entire proposition is supported by HARD FACTS, unequivocal evidence of customer advantage – ’sales and advances up 31%’, ‘client numbers up 25%’, ‘Average loan size is up 5%’, ‘operational efficiency measured by the client/officer ratio has improved 50%.’

7. There has been sustainable improvement demonstrated by BEFORE AND AFTER COMPARISONS – ‘improved 50% since 2002′.

What proof points are important to underline your strengths? Could Vision Critical be one of them?

As the holiday season approaches, confidence among IT decision makers has made its greatest leap of the past 18 months as evidenced not only by our own survey but also that of CDW IT Monitor. Fuelled by IT investment expectations and emerging signs of good news about hiring, IT confidence has clearly returned to levels last seen before the start of the financial crisis in August 2008.

According to the latest CDW IT Monitor, almost half (48 percent) of corporate IT decision makers anticipate budget increases in the next six months, rising nine percentage points since October. In addition, more than three quarters (76 percent) of both corporate and government IT decision makers expect to replace or install new software in the next six months, the highest reading on record for the IT Monitor. The overall IT Growth Monitor, which measures anticipated IT investment, rose four points from 63 to 67, the largest gain in the past 18 months.

“There are a number of dynamics in the marketplace that, when combined, create a greater sense of optimism—especially during a time of the year when people traditionally feel more hopeful,” said Thomas E. Richards, president and chief operating officer, CDW. “However, some uncertainty lingers as potential federal legislation remains under debate. It will be interesting to see how confidence levels behave as these developments continue to take shape.”

Initial positive signs are also beginning to emerge for the IT job market. Twenty-two percent of corporate IT decision makers plan to hire additional staff in the next six months, an increase of 10 percentage points since October. Also, within the large business sector, 34 percent expect staffing increases, up 18 percentage points since the last IT Monitor.

The overall CDW IT Monitor index score increased two points from October to stand at 72, the highest reading since before the 2008 collapse of the financial markets, a strong supporting indicator of returning confidence and improved sentiment in the IT industry.

Today, Robert Peston, BBC’s business editor commented today in a piece entitled, “Can Banks Save the Planet”, that: “If the current entente between G Brown and N Sarkozy ruled the world, we would be well on the way to a global tax on financial transactions.”

He adds that “In a recent joint statement, the unlikely double act said that the “revenues from a global financial transactions tax” – perhaps better known as a Tobin tax – could help defray the costs of transition to a low-carbon economy, especially for developing countries.”

Whether it is the banks’ role to save the planet or even their responsibility is one matter, the other is how it could possibly be administered. Peston goes on to say that “If such transactions could be identified with confidence, then taxing them might be harmless to the prospects for sustainable economic growth or even a good thing.”

He concludes: “What would be required is solid data…Unless and until such data can be collected, the debate on whether a transaction tax could or should be implemented is probably going nowhere.”

The widespread implementation of OSMO® for automated and transparent transactional data extraction and transfer at source would effectively solve the levy information issue in one fell swoop. Transparency and taxation in perfect union.  Messrs Brown and Sarkozy, we await your conference call with pleasure,

I’ve just received my copy of the Business Money Plus email, that gives a  personal account of the ABFA Conference and also features the Vision Critical Technology Survey results just beneath Bob Lefroy’s review.

The survey findings have received coverage in some exciting and impressive quarters, notably Yahoo Finance which boasts an astonishing 58,433,000 visitors per day, IT News, European Internet Network News and World News Report. We have also come to the attention of the Twitterati with some key influencers ranging from independent technology commentators through to financial corporates such as BNP Paribas’ Latelier.

Gartner have back up our findings with a  report of their own. Hot foot on our own published results, their survey highlights that 71% of respondents claim revenue growth as a key aim in 2010, not cost-cutting. Nearly two-thirds of CEOs have acknowledged the importance of IT in the building of a post-recession strategy.

According to the survey, 62% of CEO respondents described the role of IT as key in their respective post-recession strategies, whilst 71% of respondents claimed turnover growth was a key objective in 2010. Cost-cutting proved the most important objective in last year’s survey, and it falls to the fifth most important driver over the next 12 months.

“With business leaders progressively shifting their time and attention away from the introspection of restructuring and tactical cost cutting, and back towards customer value propositions and servicing during 2010, IT leaders should propose new ways in which technology can be used to support existing and new customers. They should also discuss talent-management issues and consider special provisions for key talent,” said Mark Raskino, research vice president and Gartner fellow.

“Business leaders are gasping for growth after a long period holding their breath, and they are expecting to increase the importance of IT in their post-recession approach. It is critical that CIOs review business leaders’ rapidly changing tactical business priorities and often unstated new expectations of where IT can help as the economy turns. CIOs are in a good position to have that conversion right now. They should also take advantage of business leader’s relatively positive attitude towards IT investment during budget negotiations.”

Backing up CEO claims of IT’s importance in 2010, is news that 43% of respondents will increase the level of IT investment next year, with a further 45% maintaining 2009 levels. Just 13% of respondents admitted they’d decrease IT spending next year. Raskino commented positively: “These findings reinforce Gartner’s IT spending forecast of 3.3 per cent growth in 2010. With this warm attitude to IT, CIOs should stand their ground if peers attempt to gain investment share at IT’s expense.”

He added: “Now is the time for CIOs and their teams to help power economic recovery and make a major contribution to the future prosperity of their businesses.”

The findings endorse our own research and strengthen the case for confidence in respect of technology investment in 2010.

The following breaking story, based on recent independent research commissioned by Vision Critical, will hit the official financial newswire circuits tomorrow am. Here, we reveal the findings:

Technology is the critical focus area for financiers for 2010, according to a new independent research study commissioned by Vision Critical, leading software provider to the commercial finance industry.

The UK Financial Technology Survey conducted in November 2009, reveals that 83% of firms see technology solutions as a major source of competitive advantage for next year. Furthermore, half of those surveyed said that technology produces better returns than other investments.
Respondents span a wide range of financial sectors, ranging from asset based lending, supply chain management, risk and compliance to e-invoicing and payments.

CEO of Vision Critical, Oliver Chadwick comments: “It is encouraging to note that so many successful organisations attribute technology as a major source of competitive advantage. There is no doubt that technology solutions are enabling firms to add value to their clients as well as dramatically improve business integration and process delivery.”

When asked, “In which areas do you believe technology investments have the greatest positive impact on your organisation”, 91% stated that better integration of existing applications was paramount, followed by better alignment with strategic goals (55%).

According to the survey, the main reasons that financiers are now investing in technology solutions are: streamlining business processes, analysing business information and enhancing the service provision to clients.  90% of respondents ranked these reasons as important to very important in terms of weighting.

These were followed closely by minimising human error (80%), minimising risk exposure and knowledge capture / management (77%).  Reducing headcount was also cited by 70% of respondents.

Lenders measure their return on IT investments mainly by cost savings (81%) and staff productivity (75%), followed by speed of process (72%) and revenue generated (65%).

The technologies that firms are investing in are concerned primarily with visibility and transparency, evidenced by unprompted responses such as “business integration”, “data integration and data quality” and “better access to clients’ data”. Unsurprisingly, “risk management” and “fraud” also top the IT agenda of financiers today, with “automation of processing”.

The most innovative uses of technology in financial services mentioned comprise areas such as: “Electronic extraction and transfer of data from clients’ systems to funders” and “The creation of a true single view of the client, including their exposures and their products”, both of which have been driven by Vision Critical’s OSMO^® product, powering over 8 million transactions in the UK alone.

I used to think that people who spoke about “spending money to save money” were justifying their Christmas shopping spree or that shiny new executive car purchase. But as I have met more and more of our clients, it’s become very clear that the higher up in the organisation a person sits, the more attention is now being paid to how money is being invested to gain tangible savings for which there is a sound business case.

During the recent ABFA conference, Alastair Wilson, Head of the Bank of England’s Financial Institutions Division, discussed the importance of the banking sector rebuilding its balance sheet while supporting the recovery through lending to the real economy. What is abundantly clear is that companies and UK PLC must continue to invest in technology, if not accelerate that investment.

Executives want to know how the money is being spent from their budgets to gain return-on-investment (ROI) and to maximise and prioritise their IT budgets. Coming into 2010, C-level executives are not afraid to spend money now to save money in the long run. In fact, if there is going to be a strong or high payback, they want to spend the money as fast as possible to realise the economic returns as soon as possible.

I’ve noticed that during challenging economic times, too often the lower-level positions in an organisation translate corporate belt tightening initiatives from the top as times of “no spending” or “no budget.” This is all too often an incorrect interpretation and it can be misleading. The directive from above may instead be about asking the organisation to review how existing budget is being spent today compared to other ways it may be allocated to gain a greater ROI.

2010 is not the time to stop spending, neither is it the time for prevarication! The bottom line is that the smart money is on spending to save money, and that budget can usually be found if there is a will to achieve real returns!

Gartner, always one to beat the rush, tends to predict their strategic technologies earlier than most. One of the strategic technologies heralded for 2010 is ‘Advanced Analytics’.

Optimisation and simulation is about using analytical tools and models to maximise business process and decision effectiveness by examining alternative outcomes and scenarios, before, during and after process implementation and execution. Gartner describes this as as a ‘third step’ in supporting operational business decisions.

“Fixed rules and prepared policies gave way to more informed decisions powered by the right information delivered at the right time, whether through customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) or other applications. The new step is to provide simulation, prediction, optimisation and other analytics, not simply information, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action. The new step looks into the future, predicting what can or will happen.”

Using our new product, ‘CashCaster’, we can now build a picture that will predict the cash flow and funds flow movements of a business in the coming 30 to 60 days. The information produced by OSMO^® identifies if that business is right to move from conventional funding to asset based lending and the forecast effect on the cash flow and funds flow.

Advanced Analytics – sounds like ‘Cashcaster’ to me!

Maurice Craft, managing director of Regency Factors and Chairman of the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA), presided superbly over the Annual Conference, “Back to Basics”.

His conclusion in his key note speech that reputation is vital, underpinned the entire conference theme.

In this economy, protecting a financial firm’s reputation is both the most important and most challenging task facing senior executives today, according to a recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Furthermore, there is broad agreement that reputation risk has increased significantly over the last five years for several reasons, including a string of high-profile market failures as well as tightening regulatory pressure.

Dr. Majorie Dijkstra of the Reputation Institute gives a four-step process for managing reputation risk, summarised below:

1. Risk identification – assessing the gap between stakeholder’s perceptions and beliefs and the actual performance of the company.
2. Prioritisation (risks and stakeholders) – assessing the probability of risks and the impact of the risk on reputation.
3. Mitigation – assessing the best response based on controllability of risk, the impact of risk on the business across stakeholders and the cost of implementing the strategy.
4. Monitoring – closely monitoring changes in stakeholder’s beliefs and expectation that may affect reputation.

Our view is that corporate reputations and integrity of information are linked. Those companies that care about their reputation, similarly care about the quality, accuracy and integrity of the information upon which they base their business decisions.

Vision Critical not only delivers assured integrity and transparency of information on transfer, it provides the information in real-time, enabling financiers to lend more, with greater certainty and speed – more securely. These are the four key factors that will influence economic recovery, the generation of confidence and the sustainability of the financial sector in the eyes of SMEs and the Government.

I’ve just come out of Philip Learmont’s session at the ABFA Conference, ‘Reducing Risk and Cost with Document Automation’.

It is not just that he is a genuinely good bloke (I enjoyed a great fish and chip supper with him and the guys from Vision Critical last night) but that he conveys a strong message to the industry with clarity and purpose as to the competitive advantages of e-based solutions throughout the ‘Order to Cash Process’.

All too often, document management is seen as an ‘end of life’ activity, whereas dematerializing it as early as possible in the process permits a step change in processing at cost, cash flow, risk and process levels.

The savings are obvious, not only in terms of postage but also in staff costs. The cash flow benefit is similarly compelling: Transparency in terms of debtor activity, focus on those who need chasing, speed of same day delivery, communication and query capability, supporting information such as linked PODs and copy invoices. Philip then outlines risks and mitigation through e- based solutions.

The technology is now available to the receivables and ABL markets to achieve effective document automation. This is certainly proven in other markets and there is the potential for strong first mover advantage.

As Oliver Chadwick recently mentioned in his column in Business Money magazine: “If all 8 million transactions processed by OSMO^® had all been sent as traditional invoices, it would have resulted in 51 metric tons of paper. That, in turn, represents 960 trees which have been saved, in addition to 113 barrels of oil, 231,785 kilowatts of electricity, 138 cubic metres of landfill space and 1,515 kilograms of air pollutants. Consider that across Europe, there are currently some 15 billion paper invoice transactions and you can see the scale of both the problem and the opportunity for the commercial finance industry. It is time that everyone involved in the receivables industry started taking CSER generally and e-invoicing specifically very seriously indeed.”

Add this to the comments made by Philip and it becomes a very persuasive story indeed, which at least one female audience member described as ‘seductive’.

2010 must surely be the toughest year to call since Bob Lefroy started Business Money.

I think we all look forward to the economic session at the ABFA Conference today for an informed glimpse into the future.

A number of people I spoke to yesterday at the ABFA Welcome Reception, sponsored by Vision Critical, predicted that next year will see a continuation of the refinancing and turnaround focus we have witnessed throughout 2009. Asset Based Lenders say that they are receiving actual or anecdotal evidence from corporate advisers of percolating trickles of transactional activity.

As a conference theme, ‘Back to Basics’ speaks of a solid platform and reminds us that we can’t be complacent. Stephen Wells of De Vere & Co added the caveat that we may not so much be at the top of the V but at the mid point of the W. Certainly, the unprecedented shock of the past two years should theoretically lead to a more balanced, less risky pathway to growth – one in which the short-term returns may be lower, but the long-term rewards for management success will be a lot more sustainable and secure.

Mat Heritage of Vision Critical was rather more bullish and feels that the conference theme should be ‘Opportunity Knocks’. Hughie Green aside, tough times can open up opportunities.

Recessions upset the status quo: Often both gains and losses can be more pronounced than usual. Recession can be the optimum time to overtake competitors. Successful athletes often choose times of maximum stress to mount attacks, increasing their pace on severe inclines. In a similar vein, proactive marketing includes both the sensing of the existence of the opportunity (a tough hill and fatigued opponents) and an aggressive response (possessing the necessary strength or resource) to the opportunity.

At this time, clients also put much more thought into their choices – which means they may be unusually open to a financial marketer’s messages. In a more collaborative, less transactional world as we have right now, closer relationships with customers, suppliers, employees and shareholders are paramount.

Downturns have the tendency to greatly magnify benefits and accelerate rewards. Invest in the right technology and you can increase process efficiency, drive down operational cost and gain early warning against risk at a time when you need to most. Invest in marketing and you will gain a greater share of voice during ‘quieter’ times with sustainable benefits and the opportunity to position your organisation ready for the the upstroke of the W.

Opportunity knocks? I believe so.

Here are three of the hottest Tech Trends for 2010:

Altiances (Alternative Alliances)
While it makes sense to build partnerships in good times, the rationale for alternative alliances is even stronger during a time of economic challenges. Strategic alliances allow firms to create new bundles of value, increase distribution, expand into new markets, test new approaches, fill market gaps, reduce overhead, leverage resources and share risk. Can Vision Critical form that vital link between your partners to deliver superior value or even a brand new hybrid product or service?

Apcceleration (Application Acceleration)
2010 will be the year where financiers start to get their heads round useful mobile marketing applications. By that, we are not talking about old-school WAP web sites. It may be idea led or data (mash-ups) led but it’s the right time for financial organisations to start to make the most of the app revolution and accelerate development now to steal a march on the competition. What role could Vision Critical play in the effortless and accurate provision of source data for your apps.

Tribalogy (Tribal Technology)
The creation of passionate groups or tribes around a common interest, market, product or geographic reach using social media technologies will become even more important in 2010. The recent Tribalization of Business study by Deloitte has found that 94% of businesses will continue or increase their investment in online communities and social media next year. What technologies will reach your target tribes? What are their information needs?

For most people, the “Real-Time Web” is synonymous with the exploding number of live social activities online, from tweets on Twitter to status updates on Facebook to the sharing of news, web links and videos on a myriad of other sites. It’s a whole new layer of innovation that’s opening up on the web.

As a lender, there is no doubt about the premium you place on timely information. Today, it has reached a point where the value of information diminishes in direct proportion to how old it is. The converse is true and accurate, timely, actionable information can make all the difference between profit and loss on a transaction. Information’s growth and absorption has grown at an exponential rate.

We live in a world in which the newspaper is in danger of becoming obsolete in favour of digital media where you can break stories in a matter of minutes. But minutes are not fast enough for our information-hungry communities anymore. For example, if it takes us several minutes to break a story, it may be too late – Twitter probably has already broken the story and thousands of people are already discussing its ramifications.

However, the Real-time Web goes way beyond Twitter to a fundamental re-thinking of the way the Web works through to the way content is transferred, filtered, organised and archived online. We’re reaching a point where the flow of information has become so heavy that the only way to really keep track of it is via real-time web tools. The fact itself has huge consequences shaping the way that businesses operate and what they expect from clients, suppliers and internal processes. But there are some major disadvantages to the real-time evolution. With faster information, there need to be more filters and checks to ensure its accuracy.

This trend brings up two very important questions. First, is the Web going to become more and more of a real-time phenomenon, where speed matters most of all? Secondly, is it sustainable and can you filter the information so that it does not overwhelm?

On the first question: the general trend seems to be towards real-time. As long as demand for information exceeds supply, faster information will be valued by our society.

The answer to the second question is the most difficult one to answer. We can only read and listen to so much at a time. There may very well be a tipping point where the need to quell the information flow is heightened, but as long as the technology exists and develops, real-time will continue to move forward. We should expect faster information, faster technology, and more filters to help us control it.

Real-Time solutions from Vision Critical exploit all of the opportunities afforded by the medium described above, with none of the problems associated with Real-Time Web. Since OSMO^® draws real-time information from the original source, i.e. the accounts package, without manual intervention, the integrity of the information is peerless. The software allows complete connectivity with minimal impact on infrastructure. The transparency and visibility of business information makes OSMO^® the automatic choice to create innovative solutions for any lender, capturing the spirit of the Real-Time Web in its purest form.

The filters and analytical tools that check the validity of the information, combined with accurate real-time reporting resolve the main problems discussed above and address the lenders’ requirements for an early warning of incidences of potential fraud. The ability to develop bespoke reports and to drill down to invoice-level granularity also harnesses the power of the medium and eliminates the negatives normally associated with it.

We started by talking about social media in the context of Real-Time Web. With these advantages, it’s hardly surprising that OSMO^® is the lenders’ friend.

It’s always healthy to look back at New Year predictions at this stage of the year and see how these compare with reality. Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, kicked off the year with an impressive list of disruptive ‘technology resolutions’, at least three of which are being adopted by lenders we know today, from social networking to Cloud computing and web mashups.

As always, technology pushes finance and finance pulls technology, ultimately propelling them both in the same direction. Gartner’s other technology-related predictions were more sobering and these range from ‘consolidating systems’, ‘mothballing projects’ and ‘curtailing data centre expansion’. After all, things that can be delayed will be delayed in a recession, right?

Wrong! Now is the perfect time for change, for that counter-intuitive action that will give you an edge over your competitors. Whilst some players will focus upon highly conservative cost saving projects with low short-term returns on investment, others are now seizing the opportunity to make a difference.

Watch this space for details of the Vision Critical Technology Survey coming soon…

We’re looking forward to the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA) Conference more than ever this year. And, before you say anything, it’s not just because we’re sponsoring the Welcome Reception (albeit that it’s a great reason to attend in its own right)!

Unmissable and unforgettable were at least two of the ‘Un’s’ that were mentioned last time we were sponsors. Venice was really special for all sorts of reasons, not least the spectacular palace in which the reception was hosted. Admittedly, these are more sober times (an odd phrase for a reception sponsor), but no less exciting – so have no fear – we’ll definitely be keeping the hospitality flowing.

The theme of the 2009 conference is ‘Back to Basics’ and based in Brighton (forgive the alliteration). However, we were thinking only this morning just how much the receivables market has changed in a matter of two years and what an interesting time it is to explore opportunities, even closer to home.

In a market that has seen such dramatic change in terms of the fortunes of players large and small, 2010 certainly looks like being no exception. The market will inevitably see more refinancings, restructures and turnarounds and rumour has it that it that it will become known as the year of the pre-pack. Transactional activity may well pick up by September 2010 and there may even be the promise of tectonic plates shifting as players change hands or become absorbed.

So then, ‘Back to Basics’. Well, December is a traditionally good time to take a few paces back and have a considered view as how to grow a commercial finance operation, both organically and through acquisition, whilst reducing risk. We have a unique take on operational effectiveness, process efficiency and risk reduction through the power of information and, with OSMO^®, a proven product that demostrates our thinking. We look forward to seeing all of the people that have expressed an interest in meeting us to learn more, thank you for getting in touch.

This is also an ideal time to look forward. The conference itself is far from navel-gazing as a result. We relish the prospect of the two Turners taking to the stage. There’s a fascinating session on New Markets, New Opportunities, New Risks with Paul Turner, Head of Sustainable Development, Wholesale Banking, Lloyds Banking Group. Dennis Turner, Chief Economist of HSBC Bank plc in the City, will be giving the Key Note Speech, which will give us some up to date economic insight. Reading his biog, We thought that being a director of Fulham Football Club he must know quite a bit about highs and lows, ideally qualified to conduct an economic overview right now!

We’re also particularly keen on attending Developments in Collections Technology as well as Influence and Persuasion session, where, intriguingly Dil Sidhu of BDO Stoy Hayward LLP explores the 6 leading principles of the science behind the ‘art’ of influencing people. A 21st century take on Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People it isn’t. This is based on the latest scientific research from Harvard Business School and showcases in the arrestingly titled Technology and Motivation Zone. Whilst we are at our busiest operationally, the conference genuinely can’t come fast enough. We look forward to seeing you there and giving you a warm Vision Critical welcome!