Skipton holds the place as
the UK’s fourth largest building society with over one million members and a nationwide
network of 88 branches.
We saw Alison speak at a Building Societies Association Digital Mutual event 18 months
ago talking about the digital transformation journey she had led Skipton through over
the past six and a half years. It struck us that Skipton’s results were an inspiring
example of an incumbent adapting and adopting new ways of working and new technology to
deliver better customer outcomes and impressive business results.
We were delighted to have the opportunity to discuss their journey in more detail with
Alison, in particular some valuable insights that other incumbents could learn from.
Hi, Alison. Could we start by you giving us a bit of background about yourself, and how
you really started that journey at Skipton?
My background is in financial services for the last 27 years. 21 of them were in First Direct
and HSBC and the latter 15 all in Digital. I have held senior posts, I sat on the board at
First Direct as Head of Digital and then went to HSBC in a Senior
digital role initially in the UK and then working globally. So I came to Skipton with a lot
of experience to do the job in hand, which was to build a new digital function for Skipton
Building Society and create a Centre of Excellence. There was some
digital work ongoing which was then integrated into the new function. So that was 5 and a
half years ago, and we've been on a very interesting journey since.
Coming from a large organisation like HSBC, a big global cooperation, through
to Skipton which is a bit of a smaller organisation, was there a big shift in terms of
culture, budgets and digital maturity?
Yes . We’re not a bank and therefore we don't have the same requirements as a bank. We are a
mutual and our DNA is centered around building a better society. So therefore the culture of
Skipton continues to be exceptional which was hugely advantageous
as we embarked on a new Digital journey. It definitely wasn't a revolution, we already had
some work in progress but it needed to be upgraded and built on and I was fortunate to have
the backing of the Senior Executive team and continue to have their
support. Injecting digital into a well established financial services establishment with a
strong legacy, had it’s challenges but with great people and a willingness to progress we
have definitely embraced digital.
So from a customer experience point of view, if you look back six years ago, what was it
like then and how does it contrast to now?
It was a flat basic website, both secure and non-secure. It needed attention as whilst it
served a purpose, there was tons of opportunity What we've done together is we've built on
the customer experience and we've injected some soul, feeling and personalisation
into the online channels and I’m delighted, with much involvement from many, we are heading
in the right direction. We’ve come a long way in 6 years.
A lot of the time our starting point with incumbents in the space is a series of platforms
that serve a purpose and functionally work (broker portals, customer portals etc) but
they're not really at the next level in terms of user experience. One thing
we often help with is methodologies and techniques to really understand their users more
and really put the user at the centre of it. How do your team go about gathering
feedback from users and validating ideas?
We've got an excellent customer insight function at Skipton. Within Digital we have an
experienced UX team whch has been built up over the years and we also work with external
third parties on occassions. Marketing play a significant role in the success
of Digital and we work as one to aid engagement and improve acquisition.
So you do lab testing and guerilla testing?
Yes we do much to ensure we align solutions to customer needs and requirements
And in terms of your methodology, We speak to a lot of companies and some of them pay lip
service to agile methodologies but are really not quite there yet. Have you adopted
agile internally?
The whole organisation is on the cusp of going fully agile. On the 1st March we are launching
our agile programme and it’s a very exciting future.
Sometimes our other clients say that in terms of the digital unit or the marketing or IT,
they've really started to embrace agile, but if the other parts of the business aren’t
also on that journey, then you hit a structural roadblock, especially
if your system vendors aren't working that way.
That’s very true. We are looking forward to the difference a new way of working will make to
Skipton and will evolve this change journey bringing others involved along with us.
Sounds good. In terms of your tech stack can you talk at all about that? Do you use
industry standard core systems? Or have you built your own technology internally?
We’re a .Net and Microsoft shop and we have a core system called Jade which we own so it’s
quite unique. Then we have an API layer as well, so it’s pretty standard.
Do you have any challenges around legacy systems and how did you overcome these?
Yes, over the 5 years we have had legacy system issues. But with thousands and thousands of
lines of code that will be the case just like any other organisation. But we have certainly
over the last three years worked to pull some of that business logic
up front and into an API middleware layer which means that we can now externalise much of
our proposition to think like the Apps. But we are not about to knock it down and start
again that’s for sure.
So in terms of API's, it's a hot topic in industry for obvious reasons. How do you see
open banking affecting building societies? As one example?
The same way as many of our peers, it's a watching brief at the moment. I know the banks are
doing a lot more but from a Building Society perspective, we've done much R&D work and
we have some services that utilize open banking platforms. It's early
days for many of our peers as well.
From a savings perspective, there's quite a high risk of commoditisation with the Buds of
the world and others having talked about auto switching accounts based on moving to a
better rate etc. Is there a risk perhaps of the USPs of building societies
maybe being undermined in the future if everything becomes really commoditised and
ultimately even more price driven?
It's a fair question, of course.
How do you think you would combat that?
That’s my point about a watching brief. We are starting to do work to understand the
operating model, the infrastructure and the experience and will continue to do so to get us
to a place where if needed to mobilise something, we’ve got learnings
and some experience that will enable us to do that. Our strategy has Open Banking in it,
it's just not advanced from a knowledge perspective at the moment. It’s early days.
There's also a little bit of a question mark over adoption, right? There was a lot
of excited talk a year or so ago and it's fair to say it's a little bit slower in terms
of adoption than initially expected. So, the watching brief
that you're referring to makes a lot of sense. From a mortgage perspective, are you
doing any work around using open banking or digital ID to speed up that initial
process?
Yes we are. We are doing a lot of work with fintechs, third parties, integration and
aggregators.
Do you have plans to plug in to initiatives like Twenty7Tec's Mortgage Apply, Iress Lender
Connect, Mortgage Brain Lendex, things like that, the industry initiatives that are
trying to create some form of mechanism of passing data between the different
platforms to stop rekeying? Is that something you are engaging with?
Yes we are, that’s a big piece of work for us.
Great! So you mentioned fintechs a minute ago and obviously there's a lot of buzz and
excitement around all these new startups and a lot of money being invested as well. And
so, from your perspective as an incumbent, do you see this as a big threat or
more partnership opportunities?
I see them as partners, I don’t see them as a big threat. Certainly I work with Fintech North
and engage with them. I've had some great conversations with people who work in these
organisations and it's definitely more of a mutual footing.
Looking a bit more to the future, there has also been a lot of talk around other
technologies like blockchain and AI etc. I think it’s fair to say we're probably through
the first phase of the hype curve where it's tapered off a bit now, and often
the kind of real implementation then happens in the years after. Do you see any
practical applications for blockchain and AI for building societies today and are you
doing anything in the space?
Yes in our R&D function we are. We've got a robotics team, we’ve already had some great
success with AI and robotics and we are now on looking at blockchain and looking at what
business problems that technology can solve. That is an area focus
for us.
So with AI and robotics, are you looking at them from a servicing perspective?
Yes, servicing.
Thinking about your existing channels we understand Skipton has around 90 branches. If you
think forward 10 years, do you think these will still be an important part of your
business model? And how will they plug into your digital strategy?
Our strategy is to ensure that our branches remain at the forefront of our proposition. They
are dealing with complicated advice and queries that our customers require. We've learnt
that an online offering did drive activity into branches and that was
the beauty of the complementing two channels there and I do see that continuing into the
future, that’s certainly our intent.
We operate a digital service in all our branches and as or digital offering and technology
advances I think we will be able to support our branches increasingly with complicated
conversations where technology may be able to offer a resolution. So yes
I believe that there is a strong role to play for digital where it meets our physical
branches and the great service that they offer. The question is how can digital support that
increasingly?
We noticed that Skipton had been named as one of the top 100 companies to work for in the
Sunday Times for four years running; a big accolade. What do you think it is about
Skipton that earned it’s a place on that list so many years in a row?
It’s people and its ethos. The culture is exceptional and the people are exceptional. The
ethos and we as a company help translate that for our customers. It is a mutually supportive
experience. It's a very can do attitude which is quite refreshing
to be honest.
Do you have any challenges in finding the talent in your location?
Bearing in mind we are over 5 years old, it has taken us quite a long time to acquire the
talent that we have in team today. Skipton is a beautiful town, but it's not very big and
it's a reasonably long distance from other big towns and cities. So yes
it is definitely a challenge but what I find increasingly helps is that the PR of Skipton
carries a lot of weight so we find we get a lot of people knocking on our door before we are
knocking on theirs, which is really helpful. So what you've just
talked about is great engagement and all works in our favour. But it's definitely not easy.
So on a more personal note; you’ve achieved a lot in your career to date, holding
leadership roles at some of the biggest names in finance. What do you think one of your
biggest challenges has been in getting to where you are today and how have
you overcome them?
One of the biggest challenges is the mindset of others and aligning a ‘can do’ attitude
across the organisations that I’ve worked for. For me personally it's about being brave,
committed and passionate about what you're doing and always
always putting the customer first. And that’s certainly what we've done at Skipton as shown
by our amazing customer satisfaction scores now. I think as well budgets, making sure you've
got the right business cases in place and getting the investment
you need and ensuring robust metrics to measure success This has been an ongoing focus. And
finally, surround yourself with the right people. I always say I am only as good as the
people I work with, so I personally try and surround myself with the
best.