In business, a lot of things are folklore..

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.