A Case Study on Challenges and Obstacles in Transforming to a Data-Driven Business Model in a Financial Organisation

The former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once quoted `change is inevitable, change is constant'. This is very much the current scenario for any businesses in today's world. The environment in which the businesses operate are changing rapidly. The influences of changes in PEST (Political, Economical, Social, Technology) are having an immediate impact on today's businesses. The businesses that do not understand or willing to react for these changes will fail miserably. We have witnessed these failures in many businesses as in case of Carillion plc, a British multinational facilities management and construction services company, Lehman Brothers, HMV, Clintons, Jessops, Woolworths etc. The underlying failures of all these firms are due to their inability to understand and adapt to the changes and not willing to change their traditional business models. Especially the financial industry is more vulnerable in today's world due to the interconnected macro-economy and in order to stay competitive they will have to adapt to a more robust dynamic business models rather than the traditional static models. As part of this case study we are trying to understand if employing a very dynamic data-driven business model will actually help the financial firms to stay ahead of their competition and also the potential challenges and obstacles the companies will face whilst undergoing this transformation. This case study was primarily conducted specifically for an asset management firm based in London, UK.