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African Banker: What are the key factors that have contributed to your success in digital transformation?
Elyes Ben Rayana: One of the key factors is having a vision and progressing with determination to overcome the technical difficulties and challenges related to changes. We release the first versions as quickly as possible with minimal features and then evolve them based on customer feedback. Things improve progressively over time. This is crucial in a digital approach. We don’t know at the beginning what the customers really want or their expectations regarding ergonomics or functionalities.
At BIAT, we have had 4/5 versions of our application per year, always listening to the customer feedback. Another factor is that digitalisation must also rely on an upgraded information system.
African Banker: Is there anything you would have done differently?
EBR: We often think the subject is purely technical. However, from the outset, it is essential to involve management in these approaches. For example, when digitalising, we ensure all employees are equipped with the solution because they are the ambassadors of the bank. Support for the sales force is crucial.
African Banker: Are you aiming to offer a seamless experience to meet customer expectations and acquire their loyalty?
EBR: Our approach is always to listen to our customers’ feedback, analyse their needs, observe benchmarks, and gather market intelligence. Customer feedback allows us to evolve our digital products. There are different types of segments with varying needs. Gradually, we personalise the contents through our digital channels. Another important element is the data valorisation. It is necessary to use and valorise the data we have on customers to better understand their needs and push the digital services and products they want. An additional upcoming novelty is, of course, artificial intelligence. We have started to use AI in marketing and sales, for example
African Banker: How do you plan to use AI?
EBR: Advances have already been made in data analysis to better segment the customer base. We also leverage predictive AI for better decision making with different use cases particularly in marketing and sales. Conversational AI has been tested internally. As the level of confidence improves, the content of the AI output will improve.
African Banker: Which business segment do you wish to focus on in the coming months?
EBR: We focus on the retail segment, and we offer more sophisticated products and more new services. Innovative payment services, for example, are being launched. We will also focus more on refining and personalising the information on customers in our database. As BIAT is a universal bank, we are also significantly present in the corporate market and we offer sophisticated corporate services. Renewing the experience for businesses and providing them with more services is one of our priorities.
