The innovation heads at Barclays and Morgan Stanley break down how their firms leverage technology to stay one step ahead of the competitors trying to steal their business
- Innovation executives from Barclays and Morgan Stanley spoke on Monday at Business Insider's IGNITION: Transforming Finance event at the New York Stock Exchange.
- Megan Brewer, head of technology innovation office at Morgan Stanley, said her group allows businesses to get input on problems from employees across the bank, as opposed to just those that work directly with it.
- Mariquit Corcoran, head of partnerships and programs for group innovation at Barclays, added it's important to get employees involved early in the innovation process, and that small changes can sometimes go a long way in terms of improving efficiency.
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Like a large cruise ship, big banks aren't know for their ability to move quickly or change direction at a moments notice. Banks' size and regulatory requirements means fostering change is often times a marathon, not a sprint.
However, eager to keep pace with agile competitors cutting into their market share, banks have made efforts to ease the hurdles that come with introducing new technology into their organization.
Executives at Barclays and Morgan Stanley tasked with leading the innovation efforts at the banks spoke Monday at Business Insider's IGNITION: Transforming Finance event at the New York Stock Exchange about programs they have in place.
Megan Brewer, head of technology innovation office at Morgan Stanley, said her group provides an alternative to the traditional route taken to innovate within a bank where the business works with its tech partner to come up with a proof of concept.
Morgan Stanley's technology innovation office has access to 140 leaders with domain expertise across the entire bank. As a result, the group is able to decide if a solution to the problem already exists in another part of the bank, or if it is an entirely new challenge.
In the case of the latter, over 3,000 technologists have signed on to work on solutions. The majority, Brewer added, are eager to tackle challenges outside of their area of expertise. For example, Brewer said there are a number of machine learning experts that work in the wealth management space who enjoy looking at problems on the institutional side of the bank.
"What we are offering the business is a chance to tap into people who might have different ideas on how to solve their problem," Brewer said.
Money, people and lab resources are all made available for the technologists to tackle the problem. Morgan Stanley employees have the ability to launch a public cloud lab from their desktop that gives them access to a variety of tools for working on ideas.
"We accelerate the time to value on a lot of these ideas because we are able to reduce the barriers they face in trying to get them done," Brewer said.
She added that employees are motivated to get involved in the program because they'll be able to work on problems outside their day-to-day jobs, allowing them to hone new skills, and get access to senior leaders they might not typically deal with.
Managers are also motivated as consideration of involvement in the program is baked into Morgan Stanley's talent review and promotion process.
"You, as a manager, are also getting evaluated on whether you are creating time and safe spaces for your employees to participate in our program or any innovation program within the firm," Brewer said.
For Mariquit Corcoran, Barclays' head of partnerships and programs for group innovation, it's all about planting the seed early.
Whether it's public forums in which business leaders voice issues they are face that employees are encouraged to tackle, or internal tools the bank uses to enable employees to pitch ideas, the goal is get them engaged early on.
"In order to to get colleagues excited about innovation, they have to be able to be a part of it and get involved from the get go," Corcoran said.
The idea also doesn't necessarily have to be groundbreaking, she added. Sometimes tweaking things is all it takes to make a big difference.
"You always talk about innovation having to be transformational technology," Corcoran said. "We like to say often times it is just slightly changing something someone does that makes getting that job done faster, better, more efficient."