We held our first workshop (of a series of 6) on 25th July. After JIAM Director Keiichi Aritomo presented on the broad picture of Japan’s asset management industry ecosystem, Satoshi Noguchi, CEO of Robot Funds gave us a demo of their solution to make fund reporting more customer friendly (timely reporting, smartphone-friendly user interface etc) using RPA, AI, cloud computing technology. This demo led nicely to a very lively discussion with many industry experts and other start-ups to talk about the challenges the industry was facing and how they are addressed, drawing on some powerful real examples.
Key takeaways:
There was resounding agreement across the floor that digitalisation of the AM industry is a must. Bottlenecks include; legacy systems, internal resistance, “because it has always been that way” mindset (and therefore not trying) – so is the enemy inside?
One way for a breakthrough is to work with start-ups to boost the speed (in fact it is a must as technological change is so quick that anything developed inhouse could get quickly obsolete) and there are some really great start-ups in Tokyo. Quote – “Speaking to some of the start-ups makes one feel more optimistic about the future of the financial services industry.”
We heard about some groundbreaking business examples by some of the start-up attendees and how they made the once impossible a possible. Another great quote – “Open Innovation is very much about creating a safe sandbox but don’t wait for anyone to set up a sandbox for you. If you have a great idea, create your sandbox to trial it”
