Technology & Innovation Forum: Summer update

Whilst the Technology & Innovation Forum took its own summer break in August, there has still been plenty of activity behind the scenes and so we thought it time to share news of our plans for the coming months. Though the main autumn event for our community still feels some time away, the big news for us is that the November in-person forum will be included in the main conference agenda at Asset Finance Connect’s UK Conference.

The combined forces of AFC and Finativ are well advanced in bringing together an impressive industry-panel to discuss the importance of technology investment visibly realising business benefit in terms of performance and competitive advantage, whilst maximising returns, or “bang-for-your-buck”. This panel will be part of the morning agenda at AFC, before we focus on the detail of a couple of the use-cases in our usual, smaller forum-group in the afternoon.

The most recent online session in July concluded a series that has tracked a typical tech-project lifecycle, from RFP via Business Case to the PIR (Post Implementation Review). This series served to underscore a recurring theme that has developed since the Technology & Innovation Forum first launched, around the need to bring business and IT closer together.

Constant education, knowledge-sharing and communication remain essential for both parties, to foster this collaboration. In that spirit and for the remainder of this year, we are shifting the conversation away from the technology itself and will be working to identify, describe and prioritise some of the most common and stubborn business challenges in the asset finance sector. Of course, we still adhere to the principle that the appropriate technology will be at the core of the solution to those challenges.

In the September (24^th) and October (15^th) online sessions, we will address some of the most persistent pain-points for the business, where, to date, IT investment has arguably yet to deliver on its full potential, or perhaps the need for detailed investigation and the tedious nitty-gritty of defining precise requirements have lost out to larger-scale, more newsworthy projects. These two events will thus prepare the ground for the in-person forum at the AFC UK Conference on November 25^th.

The Technology & Innovation Forum is open to AFC’s lender corporate members. To learn more or register, please contact Ariana Pragana at arianapragana@finance-connect.com.

Not yet an AFC corporate member? Get in touch with AFC’s Business Development Director, Joe Nilsson, at +44 (0) 7379 096 111 or joenilsson@finance-connect.com.