Julius baer wealth advisors12/8/2023 The bank is a founding member of Tenity, a global start-up incubator and accelerator, where it has run several POCs (Proof of Concepts) with start-ups. “There is no question that what clients experience in bigtech apps becomes the new baseline for their expectations also towards a bank, and we need to gain inspiration from them,” he says, always learning from how bigtechs “encourage a culture of innovation with a mindset ‘to try fast and fail faster’ from every aspect of the organisation.”Ĭollaboration with start-ups is also crucial at Julius Baer. While he often structures things differently to external innovators, Mr Dreckmann also sees bigtech firms as an important source of ideas. Driving the bank through the Covid-19 pandemic, he demonstrated “agile decision making”, says a wealth management consultant. More recently, he led the firm’s core-banking migration to the Temenos system in Europe and Asia, the implementation of the Crealogix Digital Hub in Switzerland and partnership with SEBA Bank to offer digital assets. His journey started in business development and took in roles as chief of staff, heading the integration of the Merrill Lynch IWM business into Julius Baer and overseeing the joint venture with Thai Siam Commercial Bank. His managerial insights come from having worked in a variety of roles within the bank since he joined almost 20 years ago. “We need to continuously assess technologies and be willing to make course corrections or adopt new technologies when they become relevant, and not just look at sunk costs,” says Mr Dreckmann. We need to continuously assess technologies and be willing to make course corrections or adopt new technologies when they become relevant, and not just look at sunk costs The other key challenge is knowing when to update systems and services and how many resources to allocate to each stage of the project. “It is also detrimental to focus too much on generating new ideas, prototypes, and MVPs instead of scaling and implementing in the real business environment.” Mr Dreckmann admits that he has seen digital transformation fail to drive results in the industry, when objectives are not clearly articulated and measured on an ongoing basis. The cost of digital transformation must also be minimised by applying a cost to impact ratio for every investment and measure it continuously, explains Mr Dreckmann.īut these projects are not always plain sailing. “A well-calibrated investment strategy based on front-to-back impact is crucial,” he adds. But that implies investments on the middle-and back office too. The focus on client service, and hence on the front-office, is at the core of the private bank’s digital strategy. This initiative follows the industry trend of building a team of tech-savvy specialists, instead of transforming the entire culture of a bank. With Target Insights, an in-house ‘corporate start-up’ consisting of cross-functional internal employees, the Swiss institution has created “the culture of a technology company within a bank”, to enhance client servicing with artificial intelligence and lead the modernisation of the wealth management business, says Mr Dreckmann. The bank aims to utilise this spend to make operations more efficient, empower relationship managers (RMs) and deliver a ‘digital first’, hybrid client experience.Īmong other initiatives, Mr Dreckmann highlights Baer’s digital Advisory Suite, which helps RMs select suitable products for clients in compliance with regulation, the “modularisation” of its IT landscape and the construction of its “data DNA”. Julius Baer, which manages SFr429bn ($471bn) in client assets, has upped its technology investment by SFr400m for the 2023 to 2025 period, although it is not able to share details of the total budget. “Effective leaders need to be able to inspire and motivate colleagues to think creatively and take risks, while providing the necessary resources and support to turn innovative ideas into reality,” he suggests.ĭecentralised and virtual teams work best, he believes, combined with “centralised technology execution” as they can thrive by adopting a ‘try fast, fail fast’ mindset. Nic Dreckmann won the award for best digital leader in this year's Wealth Tech Awards.
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