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My working week usually takes me to 2-3 different countries, and during the course of each day I am fortunate enough to meet with the senior business and technology leaders of Buy & Sell side firms in Europe and Scandinavia.
A well discussed theme in the industry is the response to market reform. The need to respond to the ever changing regulatory environment is nothing new, neither are the varying perspectives of individual businesses and programme teams who are charged with ensuring the compliance of their respective organisations.
There seem to be 2 different mind sets in approaching regulatory change, which can be summarised as follows:
1 – “Can I use regulatory change as an opportunity for me to address long-standing issues in my business?”
2 – “How do I achieve regulatory compliance with the minimum amount of change and expenditure?”
Now, the above statements are obviously anecdotal and they are extreme in their polarity, but they do a good job of summarising the common views. As a consultant, I am inclined to look for opportunity in the change which is being thrust upon my clients. A client I worked with recently is now taking the opportunity to create a unified treasury process across multiple legal entities. The downstream cost saving of putting the organisation under a unified treasury process as part of a regulatory change programme will allow them to recover the cost of the compliance programme in less than 12 months, following the implementation of the new process.
Our natural human reaction to change, particularly change which is inflicted upon us, is one of resistance. I really do enjoy the conversations I have with business leaders where I can help them see change as an opportunity to get a significant value add. All organisations need to change something to conform to individual regulatory changes, and if you can take this opportunity to change for the better (particularly if this change has positive implications in operational efficiency, process optimisation and ultimate cost reduction, etc) then surely everyone should be looking for the opportunity.
The actual question, it would seem, is not “Am I using regulatory change as an opportunity”, it’s “Can I afford not to”?
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
James Strudwick Executive Director at Starknet Foundation
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Alex Kreger Founder & CEO at UXDA
Jamel Derdour CMO at Transact365 - www.transact365.io
10 March
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