A couple of weeks ago, I watched Steve
Jobs - The Lost Interview on NetFlix. Robert X. Cringely, a tech
journalist interviewed Steve Jobs, when he had left Apple and was the CEO of
NeXT. This was 2 years away for Steve to
get back to Apple as a CEO. This was in 1995
when Steve Jobs was 40 years old.
Why is this relevant now in 2018?
1. The
key highlight of this interview is Steve Job’s comparison of “product” Vs. “sales and marketing” people. I strongly believe, that given the background
of “Digitization of Financial Services”, Steve Jobs perspective on product vs
sales and marketing is extremely relevant. Let me clarify, in the context of
this article - product means “digital product” not a “financial product”
Is building a
superior “digital” product important or just focusing on driving customer adoption?
Let me reiterate, Marketing and sales team play a paramount role in
highlighting the existence of a digital product and helping customers to build
awareness. The objective of this blog to draw parallel between Steve Job’s perspective
and digitization. He says that at Pepsico the people in sales and marketing always
would get promoted as they drive the firm’s business. However, for tech firms
like IBM and Xerox which had a monopoly at that time, product was not given
importance. Here too it was sales and marketing.
Now, pause for
few seconds, what if IBM and Xerox gave importance to the Product team in
1990’s instead of Sales and Marketing?
Steve Jobs
insight was so precise in 1995, now we all know about IBM and Xerox decline in
tech innovation and its impact on their respective market share.
Steve also
explains as to why good product vs. bad product impacts business.
Why the debate
about Product vs. Sales & Marketing relevant in 2018 for Financial services
firms?
Even though,
the core of Financial Services is non-tech, however we have observed customers
are choosing Digital as their preferred channel. I have observed that most of
the financial services firms who have good market share don’t give importance
to superior digital product. It’s akin to what Steve Jobs mentions that large
firms don’t focus on product innovation. May be financial services firms think,
their customers don’t have a substitute. Banks and Asset Management firms give
importance to marketing the product than improving customer / user experience
(UX).
Steve Jobs also
says just having a process isn’t enough, its content (business content) not
process. Following a process may not deliver a great product.
Drawing
parallel to Steve Job’s Process Vs. Content - how many customers are delighted
by using financial service firms’ website or a mobile app? Does these websites
/ mobile apps designed to understand the user’s context? Does these firms give
importance to user experience or spend huge marketing dollars to on-board customers?
2. Steve’s
answer to interviewer’s question – how did he learn to run a company without
formal training?
His answer to this
one was straight and blunt. Nobody knows why they do? What they do? Nobody
thinks about things very deeply in business. He goes on to say that most of the
things in business are folklore.
I believe, these
statements by Steve Jobs are so incisive. Drawing a parallel between folklore comment and Financial Services
firm’s digital initiatives. Most of the mid and large firms in Financial
Services are still using legacy IT systems. This retards the overall digital
user experience. How many firms use flexible technological stack?
To summarize,
the “lost interview” which was shot 23 years back, is exceedingly pertinent for
digitization in Financial Services Industry. A huge business opportunity for Fintech Startups.
Disclaimer: Predominant part of my career in Financial Services
was in Sales and Business Development, however last 3 years I have been on the Digital Product side.
