Prepare for the upcoming changes

How should German banks prepare for the upcoming changes? How should they
position themselves in an environment that is just being created and that is characterised
by high uncertainty?

More than ever, banks are forced to recognise emerging trends faster and to under-
stand and anticipate the resulting implications for their organisations – only then can
they react and make the right decisions as to their future direction and positioning.

However, to achieve this, banks need to open themselves up for new ways of doing
business, especially with regards to cooperating with other players in the market,
old and new. These changes will be profound and banks’ business models will shift
away significantly from the traditional, monolithic model. Which capabilities will be
needed to survive? From our point of view, banks will have to (further) develop two
main competencies:
• They have to make their organisations more culturally flexible
• They have to improve their innovation capabilities in order to provide novel
solutions and achieve a new positioning under different scenarios