EXPERTS EXPLAIN. 4Q’s with Eric Jones.
In this edition of EXPERTS EXPLAIN, Eric Jones, President of UFS, answers questions that address how community banks can navigate through grey areas of uncertainty surrounding technology, and why a focus only on community banking makes sense.
Navigating The Grey.
Community Bankers are continuing to face uncertainty as they build their short and long-term business strategies. In this episode of EXPERTS EXPLAIN, Eric Jones, President of UFS, shares some insights into why focusing only on community banks make sense and how UFS guides community bankers to bring clarity, and help set priorities in the technology space.
Bankers approach UFS frequently to gain insight on the challenge of making sense of all their technology options as they are inundated with information on topics like improving efficiency, lowering the risk of cyber threats, complying with regulatory guidelines, and enabling digital customer experiences, as well as trending technology topics like crypto currency, block chain and robotic process automation.
At UFS we refer to this as ‘Navigating the Grey’. UFS serves as a guide for our community bank customers to ensure that they can focus on banking and meet their business objectives. “Our role, as a technology outfitter for community banks is to guide our customers in ‘navigating the grey’ that is today’s technology world. This includes making priority decisions about where I should be investing as a bank, what type of technology I should be adopting, and when I should adopt that technology. At UFS it starts with a very personal understanding of each individual bank’s strategy,” Eric emphasized in his interview. “In order to provide technology advice, and outfit our banks with technology, we first need to understand their business strategy and priorities.”
With more than 40,000 fintechs inundating the banking industry with marketing messages surrounding what technology banks need in order to survive, community bankers are faced with uncertainty and doubt regarding where to focus their precious technology investment dollars. Eric said, “This creates this sense of uncertainty out in the market around what technology should I be using, and if I don’t use that technology, am I eventually going to be irrelevant to my customer?” The pressure suggests that if you don’t adopt all the latest technology available to you, your bank will be left behind and UFS refutes this notion by empowering its customer to make confident decisions about technology choices.
One example ‘navigating the grey’ conversation that comes up often is surrounding Digital Enablement. “If you were to believe the messaging out in the market, if a bank doesn’t have everything in their customer portfolio digitally enabled, they are going to be left behind, and that just simply is not true,” said Eric. It is very common for UFS to work with our customers to develop a digital strategy to determine what is really important to them, to better recommend where to invest in technology, and where it is okay not to invest.
To help ‘navigate the grey’ for your banking journey, please reach out to UFS so we can help you determine the best strategy that fits your bank and enables you to focus on your business objectives. ( hello@ufstech.com – 262-376-3000 )
Eric Jones is the President of UFS. Prior to joining UFS in 2020, Eric held executive positions at leading global technology organizations that served financial institutions where his primary focus was on designing and delivering innovative technology and products that bring value to institutions.