Outside financial services, a growing number of firms are mastering the ability to blend and exploit data, fueling decision making with profound insights. But the benefits do not stop there: they are also able to offer personalization at an industrial scale, making deeper connections with their customer base; comply faster, compete harder and flourish. As a result, many are entering a period people are calling ‘the knowledge age’.

In contrast, in financial services, a lot of firms are still stuck in the past, using decades old tech to compete on a whole new data-driven playing field. They are unable to address and utilize legacy, siloed data; their clients and business users are frustrated by poor answers to simple questions, and those responsible for change are drowning in complexity. These firms face growing challenges from regulators, and as part-fossilized data dinosaurs, they are threatened with extinction.