The bank's focus on emotional connectivity with customers, particularly through platforms like Neo NXT, highlights the importance of creating meaningful and engaging banking experiences. 

Mashreq's commitment to innovation is further evident in its pioneering initiatives, such as being the first bank to launch an API development portal in 2021, fostering open banking and digital collaboration.

Mashreq's digital transformation journey serves as a role model to the transformative power of digitalization in the banking sector. By embracing innovation, prioritizing customer experience, and forming strategic partnerships, Mashreq has not only achieved remarkable growth but also set a benchmark for the industry, demonstrating how traditional banks can thrive in the digital age.

The annual struggle of IT project planning in the banking sector highlights a fundamental challenge: the disconnect between ambition and reality. This ritual is flawed for several reasons. Firstly, it assumes that all IT projects are created equal. In reality, some projects yield significant benefits for the bank and its customers, while others may offer only marginal improvements or even prove detrimental. Secondly, it overlooks the crucial role of IT in driving innovation and competitive advantage. Banks that fail to invest strategically in IT risk falling behind their rivals, losing market share, and ultimately jeopardizing their long-term viability.

The key to overcoming this challenge lies in proper prioritization. This involves not just reducing the number of IT projects, but selecting the right ones. Desirable projects are those that create tangible and measurable benefits for the bank and its customers, such as faster payment processing, more reliable and accessible account services, or enhanced security features. By focusing on such projects, banks can ensure that their IT investments deliver maximum value and contribute to their overall strategic goals.

Moreover, proper prioritization requires a clear understanding of the bank's overall business objectives and the role of IT in achieving them. This means aligning IT projects with the bank's strategic priorities, ensuring that they support the bank's core business functions, and delivering a clear return on investment. It also involves involving key stakeholders in the prioritization process, including business leaders, IT experts, and customer representatives, to ensure that all perspectives are considered and that the chosen projects have broad support.

For nearly a decade, I have served on various advisory and supervisory boards of banks and financial services companies. In these uncertain times, discussions about strategy have become increasingly crucial. Surprisingly, many argue that strategy can be formulated independently of the people who will execute it, implying that any competent C-Suite should be able to successfully implement a given strategy. While this may hold some theoretical merit, the reality is often quite different.

Consider the case of a large investment bank attempting a rapid expansion into retail banking. While the strategy might look promising on paper, its success hinges on whether the existing leadership team possesses the skills and experience necessary to navigate this new market. A C-Suite accustomed to high-risk, high-reward investment strategies might struggle to adapt to the more conservative, customer-centric approach required in retail banking. Conversely, a retail banking specialist thrust into the leadership of a high-frequency trading firm might find themselves out of their depth.

Conversely, a well-aligned C-Suite can elevate a seemingly mundane strategy to new heights. For example, a fintech startup with a strong leadership team in technology and customer experience could turn a simple digital banking app into a disruptive force in the industry, leveraging their expertise to create innovative features and seamless user experiences that traditional banks struggle to match.

In my view, a strategy can only be successfully executed if there is a strong alignment between the strategy itself and the skills of the C-Suite tasked with its implementation. This is a two-way street: the skill set of the C-Suite both enables and constrains the potential strategies a company can pursue. I believe it is perfectly acceptable, and even advisable, to tailor a strategy to the specific strengths of a company and its leadership team. Just as a skilled conductor brings out the best in an orchestra by selecting music that suits the ensemble's strengths, so too should a company's leadership leverage their unique talents to craft a strategy that plays to their advantages.

In the ever-evolving financial services landscape, recognizing and embracing this symbiotic relationship between strategy and the C-Suite is not just a matter of good practice; it's a matter of survival.

https://FrankSchwab.de