"Without further experimentation," or how we launched the banking accelerator
The famous American venture fund and startup accelerator 500Startups somehow questioned 100 managers of large corporations about their work with startups. It turned out that almost all companies work with startups, but only one pilot project out of four transforms into a solution that can be brought to the market. And if we talk about banks, even less. In this post, using the example of our own accelerator, we will show what the difficulties are and how we try to overcome them.
Cooperation with startups is much cheaper and less time consuming compared to developing products with internal bank resources. So we have the opportunity to embed almost ready technologies in client services and internal business processes.
VTB has been testing various start-up work formats for several years. Every day, requests from startups to offer their services are received at various departments of the bank. But in order for such a proposal to find within the huge corporate structure of its customer, it is necessary to go through a difficult and long way. Accelerator is a platform for bank interaction with the Fintech market, where startups and internal customers quickly find each other. When selecting technologies for the accelerator from a large flow of applications, we focus on real-world business challenges. On the other hand, we offer business solutions that may lead to the creation of new products and services.
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At the time of launching the first VTB accelerator in June 2018, not everyone in the bank had a clear idea of ​​why we needed startups. In order to find interested internal business customers for piloting start-up solutions, the challenge was to involve a large number of bank departments in the project and develop an internal culture for working with innovations. An important stage of this work was the study of the foreign experience of large corporations in working with innovations.
We were helped by the experience of colleagues from Singapore (a separate post is devoted to this trip). The largest Asian bank DBS in 2009 was considered the most bureaucratic and inconvenient for customers bank in the country. The name DBS was jokingly decoded as damn bloody slow - “damn slow”. Then the new operational director Paul Cobban came to the bank. He spent the entire budget of training top managers for hackathons and made the tops participate in them along with startups - so that the bank’s managers plunged into the startup environment and “got infected” with their entrepreneurial thinking. He launched a digital training program for all bank employees, opened an innovative laboratory, trained all agile methodologies, created corporate innovation programs, held lectures and special events with the participation of entrepreneurs, made an alumni program. And in 2014, DBS was recognized as the best bank in the Asia-Pacific region, and in 2018 - in general, the best bank in the world according to Global Finance magazine.
Our task is to increase expertise in working with start-ups inside the bank, to create an infrastructure for testing and integrating solutions into the corporate environment. We decided to trust professionals who have extensive experience in scouting start-ups and organizing acceleration programs, and are able to balance the business objectives of a corporation with the capabilities of start-ups. To do this, as a partner, we have attracted the GenerationS team. GenerationS projects annually involve large corporations, venture capital investors and thousands of startups from all regions of the country.
We collected applications for three months, and as a result, 190 startups from Russia, the CIS and Europe wanted to participate in our accelerator. The accelerator gained momentum from the inside: after three months, 150 internal VTB experts worked with us from more than 40 divisions, who evaluated and selected technological solutions.
At the selection stage, bank experts have already confirmed that pilots are ready to conduct with selected startups. Of the 190 startups, 32 were chosen - they scored the largest number of expert votes. We invited them to Demo Day. Previously, the GenerationS team helped them prepare for the presentation, formulate a value proposition, and describe their competitive advantages.
On Demo Day, we gave teams 5 minutes per presentation, which was evaluated by experts and top managers of the bank. At this stage of selection, we evaluated:
According to the results of Demo Day, 12 startups for piloting passed to the accelerator. The accelerator does not have a budget for experiments, any testing technology is funded by an internal business customer, so we have worked a lot on success criteria, which will include both technological and business components. Additionally, we organized workshops and business development seminars for teams, joint work with mentors and experts.
Under strict corporate procedures aimed at minimizing any risks, the task was to create a fast track for the implementation of the pilots. In the case of work with startups - the risks are high, so the generally accepted procedures do not work here. Having gone all the way from the search for a startup to the implementation of the pilot, we identified bottlenecks in the current business processes.
To quickly deploy the infrastructure for pilots, we organized a sandbox on the basis of an external cloud. In the cloud it is convenient: you can use only the required amount of resources and quickly deploy test contours. In addition, testing does not require lengthy approvals, since we do not affect the “combat” systems and processes of the bank.
But in the cloud sandbox you can test far from everything. Some accelerator projects require working with clients' personal data, integration with internal data sources and intrabank systems. So you still have to work through the issue of rapid deployment of internal test circuits and access to the necessary infrastructure.
We were carried away with a description of the processes, and you might be interested to know exactly which startups got to the pilot. Within the first accelerator set there were 10 of them:
Now tell more about some of the pilots. With the technology developed by the Synpatic team, we assessed corporate customer satisfaction in telephone conversations. They did this on the basis of determining the “emotional color” of the voices of clients and call center employees. Synpatic can collect and analyze a variety of useful metrics, such as NPS (loyalty index), Negative-total ratio (ratio of total negative time to total recording time), CommonOperatorClientRatio (ratio of operator’s speech volume to client’s speech volume), ClientEndAgression (presence of negative at a client’s end of the conversation). With the help of Synpatic, we will be able to spend much less time on manually processing call records, increase the objectivity of their evaluation and, as a result, quality control of customer service.
Another technological solution created by a startup, AIST system. It collects, stores and analyzes internal and external data on urban infrastructure facilities, individuals and legal entities and ultimately helps to manage the financial results of the branch network of the bank, assess the risks of network transformation, increase sales and solve other problems of the bank. We launched a pilot in Novosibirsk and in one of the districts of Moscow. Using geomarketing tools, AIST estimated the location of existing sales points (financial and integral efficiency), and also determined the best and worst locations for placing points. In the future, scaling the technology will help optimize the existing banking network and make more informed decisions for opening new outlets.
On the basis of the software platform Data Fabric , a pilot created an artificial intelligence system for analyzing legal entities and forming recommendations for changing financial behavior based on data from open sources and transactions. The service helps clients-legal entities to look at themselves from the outside and assess their “trustworthiness” in the eyes of the Bank and the state. As part of the pilot, a unique reliability assessment algorithm was developed, which in the future will be available to both bank customers and new service users. With the help of Accelerator, we not only opened up new opportunities for development of VTB, but also revealed “difficult” places in corporate business processes, learned how to interact with startups and, most importantly, began to form a new culture for working with innovations.
In May, a new set of start-ups started at VTB Accelerator. We invite startups to submit applications on the site vtb.iidf.ru.
Cooperation with startups is much cheaper and less time consuming compared to developing products with internal bank resources. So we have the opportunity to embed almost ready technologies in client services and internal business processes.
VTB has been testing various start-up work formats for several years. Every day, requests from startups to offer their services are received at various departments of the bank. But in order for such a proposal to find within the huge corporate structure of its customer, it is necessary to go through a difficult and long way. Accelerator is a platform for bank interaction with the Fintech market, where startups and internal customers quickly find each other. When selecting technologies for the accelerator from a large flow of applications, we focus on real-world business challenges. On the other hand, we offer business solutions that may lead to the creation of new products and services.
')
At the time of launching the first VTB accelerator in June 2018, not everyone in the bank had a clear idea of ​​why we needed startups. In order to find interested internal business customers for piloting start-up solutions, the challenge was to involve a large number of bank departments in the project and develop an internal culture for working with innovations. An important stage of this work was the study of the foreign experience of large corporations in working with innovations.
We were helped by the experience of colleagues from Singapore (a separate post is devoted to this trip). The largest Asian bank DBS in 2009 was considered the most bureaucratic and inconvenient for customers bank in the country. The name DBS was jokingly decoded as damn bloody slow - “damn slow”. Then the new operational director Paul Cobban came to the bank. He spent the entire budget of training top managers for hackathons and made the tops participate in them along with startups - so that the bank’s managers plunged into the startup environment and “got infected” with their entrepreneurial thinking. He launched a digital training program for all bank employees, opened an innovative laboratory, trained all agile methodologies, created corporate innovation programs, held lectures and special events with the participation of entrepreneurs, made an alumni program. And in 2014, DBS was recognized as the best bank in the Asia-Pacific region, and in 2018 - in general, the best bank in the world according to Global Finance magazine.
How we selected projects for accelerator
Our task is to increase expertise in working with start-ups inside the bank, to create an infrastructure for testing and integrating solutions into the corporate environment. We decided to trust professionals who have extensive experience in scouting start-ups and organizing acceleration programs, and are able to balance the business objectives of a corporation with the capabilities of start-ups. To do this, as a partner, we have attracted the GenerationS team. GenerationS projects annually involve large corporations, venture capital investors and thousands of startups from all regions of the country.
We collected applications for three months, and as a result, 190 startups from Russia, the CIS and Europe wanted to participate in our accelerator. The accelerator gained momentum from the inside: after three months, 150 internal VTB experts worked with us from more than 40 divisions, who evaluated and selected technological solutions.
At the selection stage, bank experts have already confirmed that pilots are ready to conduct with selected startups. Of the 190 startups, 32 were chosen - they scored the largest number of expert votes. We invited them to Demo Day. Previously, the GenerationS team helped them prepare for the presentation, formulate a value proposition, and describe their competitive advantages.
On Demo Day, we gave teams 5 minutes per presentation, which was evaluated by experts and top managers of the bank. At this stage of selection, we evaluated:
- MVP with a clear business model and value proposition for the bank - so far we are working only with mature projects where there is already a finished product, technology or even sales experience
- The relevance and potential of a startup for VTB business
- Innovative and feasible solutions
- Competitive advantages
According to the results of Demo Day, 12 startups for piloting passed to the accelerator. The accelerator does not have a budget for experiments, any testing technology is funded by an internal business customer, so we have worked a lot on success criteria, which will include both technological and business components. Additionally, we organized workshops and business development seminars for teams, joint work with mentors and experts.
Under strict corporate procedures aimed at minimizing any risks, the task was to create a fast track for the implementation of the pilots. In the case of work with startups - the risks are high, so the generally accepted procedures do not work here. Having gone all the way from the search for a startup to the implementation of the pilot, we identified bottlenecks in the current business processes.
To quickly deploy the infrastructure for pilots, we organized a sandbox on the basis of an external cloud. In the cloud it is convenient: you can use only the required amount of resources and quickly deploy test contours. In addition, testing does not require lengthy approvals, since we do not affect the “combat” systems and processes of the bank.
But in the cloud sandbox you can test far from everything. Some accelerator projects require working with clients' personal data, integration with internal data sources and intrabank systems. So you still have to work through the issue of rapid deployment of internal test circuits and access to the necessary infrastructure.
Who hit the accelerator?
We were carried away with a description of the processes, and you might be interested to know exactly which startups got to the pilot. Within the first accelerator set there were 10 of them:
- Data Fabric - a software platform for collecting, transforming, storing and managing data based on semantic technologies;
- FreshDoc - the designer of documents using artificial intelligence;
- Synpatic - technologies for isolating and evaluating information from sounds and speech, as well as analyzing intonation;
- VOCA-TECH - personal audio label and speech analytics for bank branches;
- WantResult - generation of target customers;
- Ziax - smart robotic system for call-centers with speech recognition function;
- AIST - analytical information system for targeting based on GIS (geographic information system);
- TheWaay is a solution for personalizing bank relations with customers;
- Octopus is a data analysis and management platform;
- Fabrique.ai - a platform for processing streaming data based on AI / ML-algorithms
Now tell more about some of the pilots. With the technology developed by the Synpatic team, we assessed corporate customer satisfaction in telephone conversations. They did this on the basis of determining the “emotional color” of the voices of clients and call center employees. Synpatic can collect and analyze a variety of useful metrics, such as NPS (loyalty index), Negative-total ratio (ratio of total negative time to total recording time), CommonOperatorClientRatio (ratio of operator’s speech volume to client’s speech volume), ClientEndAgression (presence of negative at a client’s end of the conversation). With the help of Synpatic, we will be able to spend much less time on manually processing call records, increase the objectivity of their evaluation and, as a result, quality control of customer service.
Another technological solution created by a startup, AIST system. It collects, stores and analyzes internal and external data on urban infrastructure facilities, individuals and legal entities and ultimately helps to manage the financial results of the branch network of the bank, assess the risks of network transformation, increase sales and solve other problems of the bank. We launched a pilot in Novosibirsk and in one of the districts of Moscow. Using geomarketing tools, AIST estimated the location of existing sales points (financial and integral efficiency), and also determined the best and worst locations for placing points. In the future, scaling the technology will help optimize the existing banking network and make more informed decisions for opening new outlets.
On the basis of the software platform Data Fabric , a pilot created an artificial intelligence system for analyzing legal entities and forming recommendations for changing financial behavior based on data from open sources and transactions. The service helps clients-legal entities to look at themselves from the outside and assess their “trustworthiness” in the eyes of the Bank and the state. As part of the pilot, a unique reliability assessment algorithm was developed, which in the future will be available to both bank customers and new service users. With the help of Accelerator, we not only opened up new opportunities for development of VTB, but also revealed “difficult” places in corporate business processes, learned how to interact with startups and, most importantly, began to form a new culture for working with innovations.
In May, a new set of start-ups started at VTB Accelerator. We invite startups to submit applications on the site vtb.iidf.ru.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/454294/
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