No. 58. TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND CORPORATE STRATEGY IN THE GREEK BANKING INDUSTRY
Μ. Panopoulou. 2005. | ISBN: 960-341-057-8
Since 1980s, a wave of technological change and financial innovation has intensified the banking industry. This process in the United States, and moved later on to Europe, where the single market and the introduction of the Euro have accelerated the process of change. This study examined the adoption of IT technologies in the Greek banking industry. In our case studies, the interview respondents emphasized the importance of business-driven IT use in the local market which is going through a speed adjustment. Greek banks have passed through the stage of introducing IT into their operations and they are now facing the challenge of expanding their IT applications. However, banks are not technology based institutions and they usually prefer conservative technology options and reliable IT solutions provided by well known IT vendors. Along these lines, a convenient option for banks is to build IT systems on a demand driven basis. The Greek experience demonstrates that this attitude creates lock-in problems with a strong bias towards “legacy systems” projects. On the contrary, in recent years, tehnological change and de-regulation in European financial markets have forced banks to migrate to new technological infrastructure with large scale investment on new IT platforms. An operation wide IT platform provides the basis for new software applications and new business modeling. The evolution of IT applications is not slowing down, banks are seeking new business opportunities all the time and a long term vision is needed for the preparation of new migration processes. When it come to the response of Greek banks to these challenges, a coherent strategy on IT investment in the context of a broader corporate strategy is needed. Indeed, in the long run, key success factors are the complementarities and constructive interaction between long terms strategy and IT investment decisions.