– Aleks Kudic, CTO, Funding Options, the business finance marketplace
It’s easy for leaders of data-led businesses to assume they know what’s best for the customer, but boardrooms need to hear the people who really matter and not just act on data
There’s a sad reality in tech. The customer becomes a series of captured data points. And boardrooms lap it up, making critical decisions without ever taking the time to listen to the humans behind the numbers.
Back in the 1990s, my earlier career was in accountancy and telecoms, with roles of the development and managerial variety. But over the past decade, I’ve exclusively held CTO and co-founder positions in sectors including gaming, investment and, most recently, fintech. This breadth of industries taught me a great deal. And one question stood out repeatedly: who’s looking out for the customer?
As the saying goes: “The customer is always right.” However, it strikes me that this sentiment is often regarded as an old-fashioned throwaway ideal that ought to be applied only to mom and pop stores, where inescapable customers can make their voice heard directly. This is the wrong attitude.
In tech departments, software and hardware are the primary focus. Take the smartphone market as an example and just look how dramatically that evolved. From BlackBerry being the flavour of the month, people soon either wanted a bite of Apple or to align with Android. From smartphones to tablets and wearables, devices have only got more intelligent and robust, forever evolving and innovating to remain at the forefront of the next. Behind the scenes, tech teams are instrumental in this rat race.
Whether it’s developers at a pre-seed startup looking to shake up the status quo or a behemoth hoping to retain the throne, the fact remains the same: everyone wants to be a game-changing trailblazer and they believe technology is the only way to achieve these ends.
As a CTO, I completely understand. It’s alarmingly easy to be consumed by projects so much that you can become blinkered by what’s happening around. It’s only through experience I’ve learnt peripheral vision is more important than tunnel vision. If the tech team sees nothing but software and hardware, who’s looking out for the customer – the very people developers are creating for?
Technology excites me. Clearly, I wouldn’t be in this role if it didn’t. But an old colleague said something to me which stuck: “The purpose of technology, especially in fintech, is to remove friction from the user journey – primarily in order to enable the best outcomes for customers.”
Simple words, but it’s easy to lose sight of why you’re doing what you’re doing.
For all of its growth and investment, fintech is effectively still a new industry, which means it has limitless potential. So, it stands to reason people want to be more radical in their thinking than, for example, what’s now happening in the smartphone market which has largely plateaued. However, failure to remember the customers in all parts of fintech development is a risky business. In doing this, you fall into the trap of what I like to call abstract innovation.
Abstract innovation is a type of developmental creativity which, in essence, plucks ideas out of the air for the simple fact that they’re popular and seemingly revolutionary. We should all strive to break new ground and brainstorms can be powerful weapons for companies, bringing about healthy discussion and idea generation. But, are these abstract innovations right for your business? What are they based on? Is this what customers want or something you want? Even when board pressure may be mounting, it’s imperative that leaders remember to breathe and come up for air to reflect without rushing in.
I’ve seen it many times. Technology is often spoken about as something entirely conceptual without a solid foundation. Fintech has taught me the need to discuss technology and innovations with two key things in mind: (1) Is this good for the customer? (2) Is this going to add value? I instil these outlooks into my team, encouraging them to pause for thought and always recognise hype from disruptive brilliance. So, whenever we discuss something as an executive team, it’s always about trying to build on top of those two pillars: customer impact and business value. As a result, there are very few abstract innovation conversations, which helps keep us focused.
In everything I do as a fintech CTO, the customer is my main driver. There are a lot of measures we can implement from a tech perspective but it’s about making sure it presents the right outcome for the end user. I’ve been with Funding Options since March and upon joining I took an active interest in analysing the customer base. Who is applying for these loans in most cases? What are their challenges?
It’s quite unorthodox for a CTO to do, and some may immediately shrug and say they don’t have time for it, but I have followed in the footsteps of the sales staff, regularly taking time out of my day to listen back to calls we record with customers. Listening to these conversations is truly fascinating and insightful because you actually understand who they are and what pains they’re experiencing. And in doing this, you unlock a visualisation of who you’re serving, bringing them to life.
Many leaders review customers as numbers, categories or geographies and these are all valuable data points. However, when you’ve heard their difficult conversations describing business challenges, you can be sure you’re developing a product that suits these unique people, rather than the customer being just another abstract row on a spreadsheet.
