The Inside Track on Modernizing Mortgage and Lending Platforms

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Welcome back to FinTechOS Evolve podcast.
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I'm delighted to have Josh and Ben with me on the sofa here from Woodhurst Consulting.
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We've done some fabulous work in 2025. I'm sure that will continue to 2026 as well.
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Working with banks, tier twos, building societies, specialist vendors,
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very heavily into the mortgage market.
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I guess Ben, we'll start with you and give us
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a little preamble about Woodhurst and what's some
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of the problems you're trying to solve for that cadre
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of customers thanks mark so
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i think it's good to start with the purpose that
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we've aligned on in the last few years which is
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we exist really because we believe that everyone deserves better access to financial
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solutions yeah so um we've had a real luxury at woodhurst of starting the business
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seven years ago thinking about right well for everything we've seen in financial
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services talking to clients what are their problems and can we create a consultancy around that so
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I think it is good to talk about the problems we exist to solve because that.
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Segues nicely into therefore what we're set up to do so
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a lot of our clients these building societies tier
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twos um so we we predominantly
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work with organizations of anywhere between sort of
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a hundred up to you know into the thousands of people but
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we don't at the moment work uh that regularly with
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the really large global tier one banks there's still time still
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time we'll get there we'll get there and um the problems
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i think everyone will have heard these before but we'll just touch
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on them just so we're we're on the same page these guys
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have been around a while so they're often heritage players they've
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got a really powerful brand they've carrying some.
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Uh legacy processes so uh things
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are quite complex when you look behind the scenes the technology
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um can can be modern but often is is
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not it's quite common that they're sometimes on-prem
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or even if they're in the cloud there is still a lot
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of what people would refer to as these legacy
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tech problems they're with it they're in an immature place with
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data um and so the problem that
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they're actually telling us is we want to grow originations
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whether that's originations of savings or the mortgage book
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um we're finding that we're constrained by the
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fact that if we try to do that currently we're going to have to
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grow headcount really to accommodate to a point
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where it's it's not a it's not a sound business case
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especially it's just increasing it's getting higher and exactly
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so we we see ourselves as existing
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to solve that problem of being able to grow
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but being able to do it in a way that is actually then
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going to make them competitive in a market where they can't compete often with
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the balance sheet like the big six banks yeah so they really do need this efficiency
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play like you said with the cost to serve um and we are there to solve those
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problems and we're going to come on to it but broadly we we do that by providing
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people who are familiar with.
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The operating model of an organization that has a much lower cost
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to serve so we know what good looks like um and
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i think a lot of our clients also have an understanding of their employed
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people that have worked at some of the neos they will they will have probably
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come from bigger banks have had longer modernization programs and a lot's been
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delivered but um it's no easy job is it so no it's a you've been there it's
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it's tough um any transformation program is fraught with,
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risks and you know often fail we know that we know the stats you
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know over sentencing will fail in one way shape or form but i
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think you're right in terms of having the right people who've been there have
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got the scars you know they've bled through it they've they've can take the
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successes and and the failures and make it better is absolutely going to be
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key when you're sitting in front of of your clients and you'll mate you would
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have been fantastic in the building site sector um you know some great.
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Great contracts won, some great customers won. We've worked together a few times.
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And I think over the last couple of years, two or three years now,
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we've probably seen that shift of conversation around building sites being kind
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of these sleepy kind of institutions.
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And now looking across the landscape and seeing all this competition from especially
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lenders and alternative lenders coming in, stealing the mortgage market and
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realizing, oh God, we're going to have to change something.
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But where's the balance of the change of their culture and the ways they're
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working and for their members versus digitalization?
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And Trish, you've been involved in a lot of those conversations.
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So, you know, have you seen that start to change?
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Yeah, I mean, that perception of a building site is a sleepy,
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sleepy organization. I think it really is purely a perception thing.
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When we're talking to our client base, they're all hugely ambitious,
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hugely strategically focused.
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And almost exclusively the conversation
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is about growing the lending book and then everything else
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that needs to happen around that and a lot of them talk about doubling
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lending within x years as ben said without dramatically increasing
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headcount and when you think about that as a problem statement when
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you are sort of beset with not just legacy technology
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but probably a lot of the time with limited headcount
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limited capacity the capabilities are often there
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but because of those capacity challenges you know they're being applied towards
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just the day-to-day you know managing the the
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society um servicing existing customers and
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things like that so how do you drive and enact change in
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that type of environment and then the capital pressure on top
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of that in the economic economic environment
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that we're sort of going through at the moment it's a lot of compounding
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factors that certainly don't speak of a sleepy society a sleepy organization
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it's a it's a highly ambitious set of organizations that are just managing and
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dealing with a variety of challenges that you need to overcome to actually enact
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really positive change yeah i think the.
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Culture now within building society it's really picked up
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in the last couple of years and i think we've seen a lot of change
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around the leadership of building societies and
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maybe that's because people come from maybe the bigger banks that have come
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in and there is actually there is this balance of the old ways of doing things
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where you're you're so very member specific you're the human element of those
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ships is absolutely key and critical versus how do you attract the the customer
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of tomorrow by enabling digital within that journey.
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Um, I think you're starting to see that come through in building societies.
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Um, I think, uh, I, I guess the, the driver has, has gotta be a competition within the market.
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People are probably losing their market shares, but was it 42 building societies at the moment?
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Will there be 43? Will there be 40? Is it decreasing? My son's 18,
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probably looking for a mortgage in the first company.
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Would he first turn to the local building society? It's how do you capture that market?
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It's a dilemma, really. I think on the mortgage side for a building society,
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the majority of them are 95% plus intermediated.
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So the conversation for your son probably isn't, oh, am I going to go towards
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Skipton Building Society or Leeds or Nottingham?
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It's going to be, when I go with my problem statement and the thing I'm trying
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to achieve to my mortgage broker, if that's the first place they look,
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how is the mortgage broker then going to make sure that they get access to
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the societies and how do the societies make sure that
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they are as easy to do business with as possible
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with that broker community that's that's the challenge a
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lot of side on on that side of things so you've got
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this yes you've got all of the competition coming through and
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making sure that the products are as competitive as possible
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that they're priced effectively that you're targeting your niches
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so that you can actually stand out in a crowded market but also
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that your experiences are suitable um
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to make sure that you're as easy as possible to do business with for your
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broker and the end customer at the end of end of
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the line as well and those expectations have increased dramatically in
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recent years because of a proliferation of technology
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generally in the market but just the experiences where we're used to day-to-day
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as well and you hear so much about like the increase of focus on user experience
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and what have you that hasn't been applied towards this sector in the last five
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years until you know 2022 2023 that's probably when we started to see little bit more of a shift.
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And the other specialist lenders who are not mutuals, which is the other people,
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the other organizations serving 25% of the mortgage market,
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given that the other 75% is serviced by the big six banks, they're having exactly
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the same challenges. We're seeing the same projects.
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We're seeing the same technology solutions being applied, same broker front
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end systems, same core solutions.
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So that is the common thread that, as Josh said, stitches this all together.
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On the mortgage side, for most specialist lenders in building societies,
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it's attracting the broker in and making it easier for them.
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The broker's always got to be an extension of a customer. absolutely because
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their customers are expecting the same thing aren't
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they right so if if you're slow as a broker you're going to lose your customers
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equally brokers shouldn't have to be manually entering
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applications into ports anymore then they know that more importantly so
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they'll go they'll go where they can get the outcome they
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need which is always probably helping their their customer buy
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a home um they'll go where it's easier to do business and
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our clients recognize that and it's the same on the saving side you
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know a lot of um these smaller institutions tier
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two banks building societies didn't have a decent app
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for offering savings products and advice
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and you know that was okay for
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a point because of brand loyalty with certain
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demographics but now everyone recognizes that
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it's not just about attracting younger customers into the
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organization just keeping um great great
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retired folks um they want that too they want the ability
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to have digital experiences where they want to so yeah that's really what pretty
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much cuts across all of the class we're working with um and i think with the
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big banks too they're doing the same aren't they in their own way just on that
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point of sort of you know even even your sort of retirees are looking for digital
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experiences i get i've made the point a few times previously but.
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Millennials which is sort of this way this generational wave of people that have been.
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Embedded with digital experiences are we millennials i'm a millennial i think
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i might I think it goes all the way till about 44 now.
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The oldest, the oldest millennium. Okay. So.
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Yeah, I thought you'd be right in that bracket. Well, you'd be an honorary millennial.
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Pull me back in. I just watched it, Godfather. When I thought I was out, you'd pull me back in.
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The point being, you know, you think of this wave of people that are just used
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to digital experiences from sort of their childhood and what have you as being much younger people,
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and the like but the reality is you know mid-40s middle
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age and later for a lot of people you know there's the the retirees are used
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to these types of experiences as well and that that demand is only going to
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increase yeah and i suppose the other thing that's becoming more of a theme
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just to add to that as another example is making the business more resilient and safer that again.
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You've seen we've seen this move into the cloud we've seen
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benefits from that we've also seen new vulnerabilities
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and risks emerging so i think we're trying
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to deliver ambitious achievable modernizations
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that take you know the clients into new space with
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some new technology which exciting and then there's also
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a lot of work on the other side around ops res so we're
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seeing a lot more of that as you know these incidents are
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increasing um and i think clients
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become more aware of that as they're getting targeted that's that's a
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fact of it you know to improve you've got to be you know
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more digital uh but then you've also got to have new new controls
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and measures in place to keep safe yeah and i agree and
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you guys uh certainly over last year you've
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been in the room with boards and
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exco right and and a lot of um it's not not criticism but a lot of focus gets
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put on actually having the right people to drive this level of change and you
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guys are in the room and you'll have an insight into that how um how are you
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seeing kind of the boards and excos now starting to think about this type of
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level of change and how are they approaching it?
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Is there a balance that are struck between the budgetary cost or keeping their
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members or the customers happy?
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You're in it. So what have you seen come out of these forums?
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Yeah, that's right, Mark. I think we spend a lot of time in the boardroom and it's always...
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It's always um you know challenging conversations as they should
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be that's what the board said to exist and i i wrote down a few things
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that i think where we've seen it work well and where
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we've seen it be challenging for our clients so um what's
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working really well with some of our clients is where the
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board bring first-hand experience yeah of
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doing this themselves as individuals and they
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have these good contacts in their network that they
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can bring in to support the exco so it's really you
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feel in the room there's this real support from the board with really good
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tangible examples and what the watch points are
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okay for the exco yeah the second one is they they
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do the board really now do demand rigor and well
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thought through decisions um but but
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they trust that the exco is has they trust
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in the materials that are coming to board and that the process has been.
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Done so they're not picking holes in all of that but they're actually
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but they're really demanding that rigor and the third one i
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wrote down was um they really the board
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have to really understand the strategic vision of
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the business the exco so that sometimes there can be
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a bit of a disconnect but where it's working well the board
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and exco are not disconnected over that strategic vision
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yeah and just two things where i think
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sometimes it can get a bit go a bit wrong we've seen it get
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challenging is sometimes the board does
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get caught up in detail um like
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an unnecessarily level of detail and that can
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when you're slowing decisions whilst that sometimes sounds appropriate if you
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lose momentum in a modernization especially at smaller organizations but so
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so too at big ones it becomes really difficult to get the momentum going so
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they've got to move at pace and therefore you know we've we've seen that happen
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um and the second which is a i think a bugbear of a
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ex-cosis. Some board members don't know.
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Um have been seen to sort of just chuck in random technology
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um and they you
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know and ideas um and one of them might
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feel it's their need to always say something like yeah but where is ai being
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used in this thing we're doing here but and it's just not appropriate you know
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so that back to my first point that they're really bringing first-hand experience
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of what works well what doesn't not just chucking in yeah you know random ideas
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to sort of as gotchas to the exco yeah the governance and there's good government.
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I sometimes think, coming from a banking background,
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Obviously, governance is there for all the right reasons. It's a safeguard.
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It's the guardrails you operate in.
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It's there to help you challenge and to set your strategy and make sure you're
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dealing with the red flags that's coming up.
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But I don't think there's a difference between governance and good governance
00:15:08.591 --> 00:15:12.111
where actually good governance can sometimes be less. Yeah. But just do it better.
00:15:12.551 --> 00:15:18.051
Exactly. Do it quicker. Do it in a more agile fashion. Um, I still sometimes
00:15:18.051 --> 00:15:24.451
feel that institutions go in a very traditional way and feel that more governance
00:15:24.451 --> 00:15:25.531
gives them more protection.
00:15:25.771 --> 00:15:30.511
Yes. I think it doesn't actually, for all the reasons you've mentioned, it slows you down,
00:15:31.491 --> 00:15:34.391
momentum starts to get lost and actually you start to lose traction and maybe
00:15:34.391 --> 00:15:39.411
a little bit of confidence and suddenly people start playing up to the governance
00:15:39.411 --> 00:15:42.071
work rather than actually the work that needs to be done. Yeah.
00:15:42.571 --> 00:15:44.991
I'll give you, go on Josh. No, go on. Give me an example.
00:15:46.391 --> 00:15:49.491
No, I'm not going to throw anyone on the bus here, but I think it's what a lot
00:15:49.491 --> 00:15:50.891
of our clients have gone through recently.
00:15:51.151 --> 00:15:56.231
You begin your modernization, you've set up some kind of modernization oversight committee.
00:15:56.371 --> 00:16:03.471
So this is a subgroup of the boards of the board that have to stay closer to the program detail.
00:16:03.891 --> 00:16:07.671
Now we've seen that work well sometimes, but we've actually seen recently quite
00:16:07.671 --> 00:16:11.771
a few clients bin that off because it was just slowing things down and also
00:16:11.771 --> 00:16:16.051
i think it can create a problem for the other neds who then suddenly don't feel
00:16:16.051 --> 00:16:19.251
as responsible for it so you're absolutely right just getting a good balance,
00:16:19.751 --> 00:16:22.691
i think there's been a lot of there's been a lot of experimentation on this
00:16:22.691 --> 00:16:26.351
front over the last few years so speak to people who look like they're getting
00:16:26.351 --> 00:16:29.771
the governance right and and get some opinions on that because if you get that
00:16:29.771 --> 00:16:32.731
right the right level you're really looking with the view what's the minimum
00:16:32.731 --> 00:16:40.011
amount of governance we need to stay safe and not go where some people go which is just OTT I had a,
00:16:40.902 --> 00:16:44.182
different example but had a situation last last year
00:16:44.182 --> 00:16:47.462
on one day where we had two board meetings in
00:16:47.462 --> 00:16:50.322
a day with different clients one up north one
00:16:50.322 --> 00:16:53.182
down south and i was sort of about eight hours of travel
00:16:53.182 --> 00:16:58.242
in between um the one in the morning both of them were presenting pretty much
00:16:58.242 --> 00:17:01.922
the same thing we'd run an assessment process we'd been for our due diligence
00:17:01.922 --> 00:17:06.102
we were sharing with the board the recommendations and conclusions that been
00:17:06.102 --> 00:17:10.542
drawn through those through those processes um the first.
00:17:11.442 --> 00:17:14.342
When swimmingly, sort of breezed free, probably had the right people in the
00:17:14.342 --> 00:17:16.902
room that had been appropriately briefed ahead of time.
00:17:17.642 --> 00:17:22.302
And the recommendations resonated with them. They could see the rationale and
00:17:22.302 --> 00:17:24.942
were confident in the level of due diligence that had taken place.
00:17:25.679 --> 00:17:30.419
Same process, slightly different conclusions because it's a different society.
00:17:31.379 --> 00:17:36.099
But in the afternoon session or evening board session that I went to,
00:17:36.439 --> 00:17:39.579
it was a completely different situation for one reason or another.
00:17:39.719 --> 00:17:42.339
And I think a lot of it was due to the way that the board had been engaged throughout
00:17:42.339 --> 00:17:46.239
the process, level of scrutiny and accountability that they thought that they
00:17:46.239 --> 00:17:48.499
had and they wanted to apply towards it.
00:17:48.619 --> 00:17:51.999
It was a far more challenging situation and a far more challenging conversation.
00:17:51.999 --> 00:17:55.799
And we needed to go through a number of actions out the back of it to sort of
00:17:55.799 --> 00:18:00.979
close that down and give them the level of confidence that they need. So I think Ben's right.
00:18:01.139 --> 00:18:04.839
You need to get towards a minimum level of governance to be effective.
00:18:04.839 --> 00:18:09.439
But also you need to look at the engagement path across any transformation program
00:18:09.439 --> 00:18:13.759
and any strategic course of activity that you're taking and go,
00:18:13.959 --> 00:18:16.699
right, what are the right touch points and who are the right people to get involved?
00:18:16.699 --> 00:18:20.679
And how do we establish the right levels of accountability and responsibility
00:18:20.679 --> 00:18:26.099
here? So people aren't overstretching and getting to a point that does ultimately
00:18:26.099 --> 00:18:30.139
slow down progress, because that's the real killer with all of this.
00:18:30.299 --> 00:18:36.219
If you have strategic ambitions that say, in X years, I want to achieve Y.
00:18:36.739 --> 00:18:39.419
In five years, I want to double lending growth, for instance,
00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:43.119
the longer it takes you to get things moving and off the ground,
00:18:43.379 --> 00:18:46.879
the harder it's going to be to actually achieve a business case that stacks up.
00:18:46.879 --> 00:18:51.419
Because across that five-year period that you've set out, if you've established
00:18:51.419 --> 00:18:55.999
a business case effectively, you're going to have a really tight sort of payback model.
00:18:56.319 --> 00:19:00.759
If you reduce that down to four years, then the business case will never stack
00:19:00.759 --> 00:19:03.599
up and you'll come up with more and more reasons not to do something.
00:19:03.699 --> 00:19:07.039
More and more reasons not to move. And that's what time really is.
00:19:07.369 --> 00:19:12.209
Really gives people an excuse to say, I'm not sure about this anymore.
00:19:12.289 --> 00:19:15.929
And that's the killer of transformation. That's the killer of change.
00:19:16.709 --> 00:19:20.709
A lot of these institutions just don't have the bandwidth and the experience
00:19:20.709 --> 00:19:24.369
and expertise to have a three-year program.
00:19:24.769 --> 00:19:29.049
And actually, what drives realistic transformation and modernization today is
00:19:29.049 --> 00:19:30.689
where they get the biggest bang for their buck.
00:19:30.849 --> 00:19:33.549
And we're talking about origination mortgages.
00:19:34.569 --> 00:19:37.609
How do you get more in the funnel how do you engage your brokers
00:19:37.609 --> 00:19:40.249
better how do you grow your business that way and i
00:19:40.249 --> 00:19:43.009
guess that's where a lot of the success uh you know
00:19:43.009 --> 00:19:45.989
we've had together fintech os and and woodhouse is actually being
00:19:45.989 --> 00:19:49.489
in front of those customers and showing that there is a
00:19:49.489 --> 00:19:52.169
better way to do it and it doesn't isn't going to take three years it's going
00:19:52.169 --> 00:19:55.629
to take months rather than years it's not going to take multi-millions of pounds
00:19:55.629 --> 00:19:58.929
it's going to take hundreds of thousands of pounds instead and actually we can
00:19:58.929 --> 00:20:03.349
put start to put that in the hands of brokers and your members really quickly
00:20:03.349 --> 00:20:06.709
to kind of demonstrate the value, demonstrate that momentum and that speed.
00:20:06.949 --> 00:20:11.709
I think that's probably the conversation I'm seeing happen a lot. Definitely.
00:20:14.012 --> 00:20:20.292
Okay, good. Right, good. Short and sweet. Short and sweet. Absolutely. If I had a magic...
00:20:21.432 --> 00:20:25.552
I could have said it better myself. Podcast is over. But do you think,
00:20:26.272 --> 00:20:30.252
from whether it's Buildersite or indeed special lenders, alternative lenders,
00:20:30.752 --> 00:20:35.092
do you really think it is the onboarding, the credit lending,
00:20:35.412 --> 00:20:41.812
the AI element, that's going to drive the most amount of transformation for these organizations?
00:20:41.812 --> 00:20:44.832
Is that the lowest hanging fruit that people can grab onto?
00:20:49.092 --> 00:20:52.672
Low hanging fruit is an interesting term, isn't it? Because you don't just look
00:20:52.672 --> 00:20:56.972
at the technology position and the experiences that you have in place.
00:20:56.972 --> 00:20:59.592
You also have to look at all of the processes that sit behind it and actually
00:20:59.592 --> 00:21:03.612
where are those points of churn and where are we coming up against actually
00:21:03.612 --> 00:21:07.272
organizational blockers or process blockers or people blockers or whatever it may be.
00:21:07.272 --> 00:21:12.052
You can sit with these businesses and banks and building sites,
00:21:12.192 --> 00:21:15.532
actually get into the nuts and bolts of it and actually really help them define
00:21:15.532 --> 00:21:18.492
their requirements because sometimes they don't know what they don't know.
00:21:18.612 --> 00:21:21.092
Yeah, and that's a big part of it a lot of the time.
00:21:21.252 --> 00:21:25.832
I think that the low-hanging fruit is probably the, you'll call it sort of simple
00:21:25.832 --> 00:21:28.972
process change really if you take a step back and say, well,
00:21:29.112 --> 00:21:30.892
why don't you remove this for I check?
00:21:30.892 --> 00:21:33.732
But actually it's not simple process change
00:21:33.732 --> 00:21:36.472
within the context of that society because it's there for a reason
00:21:36.472 --> 00:21:39.312
and it has a history and somebody knows why that's been put in place and
00:21:39.312 --> 00:21:42.552
you need to start um breaking down those
00:21:42.552 --> 00:21:45.652
barriers bit by bit to try and get people moving towards
00:21:45.652 --> 00:21:49.692
some level of change some level of improvement some level of efficiency gain
00:21:49.692 --> 00:21:53.952
if you look at the sort of the experiential layer and the technology layer where
00:21:53.952 --> 00:21:58.652
are the opportunities for for big wins i i think on the underwriting side of
00:21:58.652 --> 00:22:03.112
things massively you see a lot of um organizations that we work with the underwriters
00:22:03.112 --> 00:22:05.192
process somewhere between one and.
00:22:05.857 --> 00:22:09.037
Three cases a day let's say on average in reality
00:22:09.037 --> 00:22:11.817
if you are leveraging technology that is
00:22:11.817 --> 00:22:14.597
available to you today you know we've all got access to it we've used
00:22:14.597 --> 00:22:17.817
the ai term already um you can
00:22:17.817 --> 00:22:20.577
massively increase that without exposing the organization to greater
00:22:20.577 --> 00:22:23.597
risk and actually you might make better decisions out the back of it so
00:22:23.597 --> 00:22:27.077
underwriting is a is a huge part of the puzzle and ben
00:22:27.077 --> 00:22:30.097
alluded to at the start that brokers shouldn't be expecting to
00:22:30.097 --> 00:22:33.457
have to fill in reams and reams of manual forms anymore actually
00:22:33.457 --> 00:22:36.477
the more you can do to to make that process as seamless as
00:22:36.477 --> 00:22:39.757
possible yeah as user friendly as possible just for small little
00:22:39.757 --> 00:22:42.517
tweaks to the user experience you're going
00:22:42.517 --> 00:22:45.297
to make massive amount of change there um and then
00:22:45.297 --> 00:22:48.677
when it comes to sort of the way that you set up
00:22:48.677 --> 00:22:51.497
and establish your products and your back-end systems and sort of
00:22:51.497 --> 00:22:54.157
distribute them out to market i think that's something where we
00:22:54.157 --> 00:22:57.097
see an awful lot of time energy and attention being
00:22:57.097 --> 00:22:59.837
spent towards in terms of the way that you price it the
00:22:59.837 --> 00:23:03.057
way that you sort of configure all of the niche bits of criteria that
00:23:03.057 --> 00:23:05.777
sit across a lending product or what have you and that can take
00:23:05.777 --> 00:23:10.197
a lot of time um internally from your product team from change teams from testing
00:23:10.197 --> 00:23:14.657
teams before you distribute them so yeah quick quick wins is an interesting
00:23:14.657 --> 00:23:18.017
term i think there's a number of areas if organizations look at it as a holistic
00:23:18.017 --> 00:23:21.217
piece where you can go right there's some real opportunity here for change and
00:23:21.217 --> 00:23:24.397
let me pick up on something you said mark because i think it's really important so.
00:23:25.086 --> 00:23:27.866
I've got a client at the moment and we are at the start of the modernization
00:23:27.866 --> 00:23:29.726
and they're a big specialist lender,
00:23:30.026 --> 00:23:33.686
which is important because I think this kind of straddles perhaps what some
00:23:33.686 --> 00:23:37.426
of the tier one banks are seeing versus what everyone right down to the smallest
00:23:37.426 --> 00:23:40.966
organizations are seeing. And that's how do you eat the elephant?
00:23:41.306 --> 00:23:45.286
So in this particular case, what they've done is some brilliant analysis going
00:23:45.286 --> 00:23:49.826
in, which is they've looked at their operational data, which everyone should have.
00:23:49.826 --> 00:23:52.826
And they've said as a leadership team like this
00:23:52.826 --> 00:23:55.526
kind of reinforces where we knew the hotspots were but it gives us
00:23:55.526 --> 00:23:58.646
the empirical data to start with yeah we've done gone right rather
00:23:58.646 --> 00:24:01.886
than and this is where it's changed i think with modernization or
00:24:01.886 --> 00:24:04.946
digital transformation in the last five years especially rather than
00:24:04.946 --> 00:24:09.066
go to board and say we need 20 million pounds to spin up a massive program that's
00:24:09.066 --> 00:24:13.626
going to completely modernize our business and solve all our pain we're going
00:24:13.626 --> 00:24:17.366
to chunk it up and it's about telling the board how we're going to eat the elephant
00:24:17.366 --> 00:24:21.946
and where we're going to go next so what we're seeing with like people who are
00:24:21.946 --> 00:24:23.346
what you probably call as.
00:24:23.951 --> 00:24:26.931
Successful transformation leaders in
00:24:26.931 --> 00:24:29.691
their organization they're doing that they're they are
00:24:29.691 --> 00:24:32.631
incrementally modernizing their business they're not taking
00:24:32.631 --> 00:24:35.751
this big bang approach and there's some some more things that we're
00:24:35.751 --> 00:24:39.051
seeing that i think are probably good to talk about because there'll
00:24:39.051 --> 00:24:41.791
be traits that everyone who's doing modernization will
00:24:41.791 --> 00:24:44.571
have and and perhaps this will be useful to them because they think right.
00:24:44.571 --> 00:24:47.531
These are the things like that are working for other people
00:24:47.531 --> 00:24:50.691
so they're being super vocal and
00:24:50.691 --> 00:24:53.411
uh communicative with their their vision for the
00:24:53.411 --> 00:24:56.271
business which they've they've taken sort of the strategy and they've
00:24:56.271 --> 00:24:59.171
said let's let's give put some meat on the bones there
00:24:59.171 --> 00:25:02.451
let's call it we call it a north star at woodhurst so uh and
00:25:02.451 --> 00:25:05.451
and it seems to work well for clients so they're you
00:25:05.451 --> 00:25:08.251
can't over communicate you're you're saying this is
00:25:08.251 --> 00:25:11.091
what we're going to do this is how we're going to break it down and each time
00:25:11.091 --> 00:25:13.891
we incrementally like modernize we're going to shout about it and say
00:25:13.891 --> 00:25:17.651
well you know what worked well and what didn't and then we can take it forward they're
00:25:17.651 --> 00:25:21.151
they're also um they're also prioritizing
00:25:21.151 --> 00:25:24.271
ruthlessly they are they recognize that
00:25:24.271 --> 00:25:27.731
you can't solve too much at once so you
00:25:27.731 --> 00:25:30.591
know with if you're breaking down for example a mortgage
00:25:30.591 --> 00:25:33.471
origination modernization you know they're
00:25:33.471 --> 00:25:36.191
not trying to look at the entire end-to-end journey of a
00:25:36.191 --> 00:25:39.051
mortgage and and spin up a program that solves all of that they might
00:25:39.051 --> 00:25:41.991
say where where is it where do we yeah they're
00:25:41.991 --> 00:25:45.271
setting it down so they say well maybe we can we can start with the underwriting
00:25:45.271 --> 00:25:49.231
process and and work there first and then then go to the broker portal and it's
00:25:49.231 --> 00:25:53.251
different you personalize it for everyone um and another point that i think
00:25:53.251 --> 00:25:58.131
is is so key because we're seeing clients saying this more and more we felt
00:25:58.131 --> 00:26:00.291
like this for some time at woodhurst but it's.
00:26:01.437 --> 00:26:04.357
To adopt where possible i think you
00:26:04.357 --> 00:26:07.057
know we will come on to it a bit because you wanted to talk
00:26:07.057 --> 00:26:09.997
about where vendor selections go wrong um they
00:26:09.997 --> 00:26:13.117
go they go wrong in the implementation that does or doesn't work
00:26:13.117 --> 00:26:16.077
and the ones that are working and the
00:26:16.077 --> 00:26:19.077
successful therefore the successful modernization leaders out there
00:26:19.077 --> 00:26:21.797
they are doing everything they can to say to the
00:26:21.797 --> 00:26:24.537
business we're going to need to adopt it and that means we're going
00:26:24.537 --> 00:26:27.417
to have to do things differently yeah because you know
00:26:27.417 --> 00:26:30.477
believe it or not the these modern vendor solutions
00:26:30.477 --> 00:26:33.257
they're not going to do it the way we used to do it yeah and
00:26:33.257 --> 00:26:35.997
i agree like um many a time i use the same
00:26:35.997 --> 00:26:39.077
analogy about ferrari and fiat it gets boring now but when
00:26:39.077 --> 00:26:42.977
you i haven't heard it have you not heard it you build a ferrari but drive it
00:26:42.977 --> 00:26:48.297
like a fiat so sometimes you say you you adopt a technology platform but you
00:26:48.297 --> 00:26:51.177
don't change your process for the technology you do it that way around so you
00:26:51.177 --> 00:26:54.857
end up spending a whole bunch of money on a new piece of kit but don't change
00:26:54.857 --> 00:26:57.677
the fundamental issues of the business so yeah it,
00:26:58.277 --> 00:27:01.397
it's getting better to be fair you see it all the time but I think a lot of
00:27:01.397 --> 00:27:05.337
people have realised that now actually technology isn't necessarily the silver bullet.
00:27:05.974 --> 00:27:08.654
It's more of a, it's an enabler to get you there.
00:27:08.734 --> 00:27:12.694
You have to change fundamentally what you do as a business and actually use
00:27:12.694 --> 00:27:17.134
this opportunity to kind of clear the skeletons out of the cupboard and almost
00:27:17.134 --> 00:27:19.574
fry away the old business process manuals and say,
00:27:19.814 --> 00:27:24.334
okay, now let's design from how we think it should be today rather than what it is.
00:27:24.674 --> 00:27:27.634
And it does come back to a bit of experience and expertise, but that's where
00:27:27.634 --> 00:27:30.634
you guys can come in and actually show what the art of possible is.
00:27:31.454 --> 00:27:36.954
That's the big thing. if you are going to take that model, it's all about having
00:27:36.954 --> 00:27:39.854
the expertise that allows you to properly design processes,
00:27:40.254 --> 00:27:44.654
approaches, experiences, journeys, all of those good words to make sure that
00:27:44.654 --> 00:27:49.254
you are introducing something that is going to be good and fit for purpose and is going to last,
00:27:49.934 --> 00:27:52.914
strategically focused and really considering what customers want,
00:27:52.974 --> 00:27:56.214
brokers want, colleagues want as well because you need to look at all of those angles.
00:27:56.514 --> 00:28:01.834
If you try and do that, I think for a lot of societies or smaller lenders,
00:28:01.834 --> 00:28:04.694
you'll have a you'll have a vision but unless
00:28:04.694 --> 00:28:07.414
you've got that broad and collective view of
00:28:07.414 --> 00:28:10.114
what good really looks like which i think is it's not
00:28:10.114 --> 00:28:12.854
just where consultants um fit in i
00:28:12.854 --> 00:28:15.614
think we do play that role it's where technology providers fit in it's
00:28:15.614 --> 00:28:19.814
absolutely where some of your um sort of implementation consultants and some
00:28:19.814 --> 00:28:23.374
of your architects are really able to shape what that journey looks like um
00:28:23.374 --> 00:28:27.054
and it's also where if you bring new blood into the organization that have seen
00:28:27.054 --> 00:28:30.414
what's happened in in different scenarios they can contribute towards that but
00:28:30.414 --> 00:28:34.174
You absolutely need that vision and you absolutely need that view of what good
00:28:34.174 --> 00:28:35.454
really, really looks like.
00:28:35.514 --> 00:28:38.134
Chugging it up into bite-sized chunks, you've read my playbook.
00:28:38.334 --> 00:28:43.414
I think that is absolutely fundamental success because when you start putting value...
00:28:44.531 --> 00:28:49.111
The hands of the broker, into the hands of the end user, and they start to see
00:28:49.111 --> 00:28:55.411
that their vision is coming true, it just breathes confidence into the program
00:28:55.411 --> 00:28:58.031
rather than waiting. Nobody can wait three years. I'm sorry.
00:28:59.091 --> 00:29:02.411
People have forgotten what it's about. The reality is the people who have agreed
00:29:02.411 --> 00:29:03.651
that's probably long gone.
00:29:04.071 --> 00:29:08.591
Nobody's waiting three years. Even waiting a year is, you know,
00:29:08.751 --> 00:29:11.471
your borderline possibly not even there.
00:29:11.471 --> 00:29:16.651
So actually putting these into drops of value across the way and actually getting
00:29:16.651 --> 00:29:21.571
people using the platform and the process and adopting it is going to be absolutely
00:29:21.571 --> 00:29:22.891
fundamental to success.
00:29:23.231 --> 00:29:27.571
And I mean, I see it all the time where people promise something all the time
00:29:27.571 --> 00:29:28.791
and it's never delivered.
00:29:28.971 --> 00:29:31.271
So when you're sitting in the board and you have those conversations,
00:29:31.271 --> 00:29:33.691
you go, actually drop one is this and it's because of that.
00:29:33.831 --> 00:29:37.691
And you drop two is now coming in the next two footprints and you can actually
00:29:37.691 --> 00:29:39.471
show it in the hands of users. Yeah.
00:29:39.831 --> 00:29:43.931
And it requires, and some of my clients have said this to me recently,
00:29:43.931 --> 00:29:48.411
and I'm so pleased to hear it, it requires the board and some of the ex-co to
00:29:48.411 --> 00:29:49.671
take a leap of faith. Yeah.
00:29:49.831 --> 00:29:53.151
Because if you go down the, there's no perfect way to do this.
00:29:53.251 --> 00:29:55.491
If there was, everyone would have done it by now.
00:29:56.491 --> 00:30:00.051
But it requires the board to take a leap of faith in the business case,
00:30:00.171 --> 00:30:02.711
because what's held some organizations
00:30:02.711 --> 00:30:06.011
back, and they've told me this themselves, is, you know, we've.
00:30:06.343 --> 00:30:09.183
Our thirst for you know full information on
00:30:09.183 --> 00:30:12.143
the business case has kind of held us back and i
00:30:12.143 --> 00:30:15.003
think you just look around and if i was a board member
00:30:15.003 --> 00:30:17.843
in exco myself i'd be doing the same who's doing
00:30:17.843 --> 00:30:20.663
really good numbers what's their setup yeah and i'd
00:30:20.663 --> 00:30:23.643
go right okay well there's the proof yeah because
00:30:23.643 --> 00:30:26.343
it can be done so you know that spending the money will get
00:30:26.343 --> 00:30:29.303
you there but you're going to have to incrementally move forward and
00:30:29.303 --> 00:30:32.143
like you say if you do that you'll get a benefits case sort
00:30:32.143 --> 00:30:35.123
of showing its value early on and that gives you faith
00:30:35.123 --> 00:30:37.783
in the next ones but that's important too because i
00:30:37.783 --> 00:30:40.543
don't i don't want people to think that there are people out there
00:30:40.543 --> 00:30:43.323
that that have this dream business case that
00:30:43.323 --> 00:30:46.083
shows all the value and it's all everything's trapped back in a
00:30:46.083 --> 00:30:48.963
perfect excel model that's a fantasy and we
00:30:48.963 --> 00:30:51.743
need to we just need to bust that myth because that's holding
00:30:51.743 --> 00:30:55.083
some people back you've got to take that leap of faith um
00:30:55.083 --> 00:30:57.923
and by being incremental it actually de-risks that you
00:30:57.923 --> 00:31:00.823
you can start to show some results and you can course correct if
00:31:00.823 --> 00:31:03.563
you need to because frankly you'll you'll come up with
00:31:03.563 --> 00:31:06.303
my this is how i chunk up the elephant i'll start with the trunk
00:31:06.303 --> 00:31:09.283
and then i'll move to the head but you might find after doing the
00:31:09.283 --> 00:31:12.583
first bit that actually you thought you were going to go there next that makes
00:31:12.583 --> 00:31:15.743
more sense to go over here and then we can react and that's a good modernization
00:31:15.743 --> 00:31:18.923
actually changing your mind throughout where to go next because there's more
00:31:18.923 --> 00:31:22.223
value and it makes sense and the dependencies are better understood and you're
00:31:22.223 --> 00:31:26.883
not going to rely on a group complaints function um you know that might be a blocker for.
00:31:26.963 --> 00:31:31.003
That now so you'll you'll see you see where to go so that is it is definitely
00:31:31.003 --> 00:31:35.123
proving to be a much more uh successful way to go about it always trunk first
00:31:35.123 --> 00:31:39.083
though right always trunk yeah yeah you you well we're going to go into the
00:31:39.083 --> 00:31:42.883
devil because fintech os is indeed a vendor but you talked about vendor selection
00:31:42.883 --> 00:31:46.163
a minute ago i wanted to get into it because it's always interesting because you are.
00:31:46.908 --> 00:31:50.088
You're part of that selection criteria, right?
00:31:50.188 --> 00:31:54.648
So you're out in the market, you're looking at which platforms are being used,
00:31:54.748 --> 00:31:57.368
which ones are up and coming, what are the problems they're trying to address,
00:31:57.468 --> 00:32:01.428
what are they solving for what car drive customers they sold it for, what segments.
00:32:02.388 --> 00:32:05.628
And, you know, we've worked together a couple of times now in a successful way,
00:32:05.768 --> 00:32:08.688
but, you know, without being too subtle about it,
00:32:08.748 --> 00:32:12.328
what brought you to FinTechOS and
00:32:12.328 --> 00:32:15.188
how did that help shape some of the conversation you had with
00:32:15.188 --> 00:32:18.608
some of those uh those those lenders yeah i
00:32:18.608 --> 00:32:21.788
mean like you say we we take a reasonably wide view
00:32:21.788 --> 00:32:25.888
of the market um we we are
00:32:25.888 --> 00:32:28.788
independent in our approach but we we certainly have
00:32:28.788 --> 00:32:31.908
views based on client need the
00:32:31.908 --> 00:32:34.648
strategy that people are undertaking the types of requirements that they have
00:32:34.648 --> 00:32:37.748
because they're all subtly different despite working in the same field we
00:32:37.748 --> 00:32:40.948
have an idea of appropriateness uh for different clients
00:32:40.948 --> 00:32:44.268
based on our understanding of the market i think on fintech
00:32:44.268 --> 00:32:46.988
os's side i think the the sort of the
00:32:46.988 --> 00:32:49.668
flexibility of the platform if you like not in a
00:32:49.668 --> 00:32:52.568
an overly adapt rather than adopt kind of
00:32:52.568 --> 00:32:55.708
way but the fact that actually you've got this sort of really highly
00:32:55.708 --> 00:32:58.688
functional platform that's suitable to support
00:32:58.688 --> 00:33:02.128
broker engagement colleague engagement customer engagement and
00:33:02.128 --> 00:33:05.788
that you have this sort of ease of integration across really
00:33:05.788 --> 00:33:08.908
an unlimited level of the market i think
00:33:08.908 --> 00:33:11.728
that really appeals to people very easy to use very
00:33:11.728 --> 00:33:17.228
configurable um for you know the lay person if you like from what i've seen
00:33:17.228 --> 00:33:21.668
and and you talk in the right way to clients right you really demonstrate a
00:33:21.668 --> 00:33:27.068
level of expertise of the lending journey in a way that um i think everybody
00:33:27.068 --> 00:33:30.788
tries to but it really comes to life in the way that fintech os presents it and i think for me.
00:33:31.478 --> 00:33:34.458
You know seeing the platform live you almost do start with
00:33:34.458 --> 00:33:37.598
a blank sheet and build a full mortgage journey in
00:33:37.598 --> 00:33:40.438
front of you in the demo yeah if you've got three hours to demo your
00:33:40.438 --> 00:33:43.358
solution you're able to go from blank slate to
00:33:43.358 --> 00:33:46.358
here's a fully end-to-end journey with a new product that we created
00:33:46.358 --> 00:33:49.058
today that's fully priced and able to be distributed out to the
00:33:49.058 --> 00:33:52.038
market and that is that is incredibly powerful yeah because that's
00:33:52.038 --> 00:33:55.138
a you know one to two month turnaround time
00:33:55.138 --> 00:33:57.878
for a lot of people today yeah there's a lot of demo
00:33:57.878 --> 00:34:01.098
hype out i mean i've sat on the other side of the table as you know and you watch a
00:34:01.098 --> 00:34:04.498
lot of demos and you think yeah yeah this
00:34:04.498 --> 00:34:07.878
is sales material no this isn't quite real but actually if
00:34:07.878 --> 00:34:10.698
you can sit in front of um you know
00:34:10.698 --> 00:34:17.218
product people it people frontline people and go actually i've pretty much built
00:34:17.218 --> 00:34:20.778
a you know relatively standard mortgage in a place of five minutes into the
00:34:20.778 --> 00:34:26.078
platform and this is how how we visualize the journey and you can then start
00:34:26.078 --> 00:34:28.338
to say, well, actually it's flexible enough to do it.
00:34:28.458 --> 00:34:30.838
If you want to put this bit up here and you want to change this bit here,
00:34:30.938 --> 00:34:33.318
you have to do it in a kind of a low code capacity.
00:34:34.404 --> 00:34:39.364
And here's a level of ecosystem integrators because the platform can't integrate
00:34:39.364 --> 00:34:40.844
into these, it's never going to work.
00:34:40.964 --> 00:34:44.504
But how that data then flows through into, if it's a decision engine,
00:34:44.624 --> 00:34:48.384
your pricing, your risk-grading piece, and how easy you can then build that
00:34:48.384 --> 00:34:53.824
and then spin it up to say, and this is what your customer, your broker journey could look like.
00:34:54.304 --> 00:34:58.204
It's not salesware. It's not, you know, it's actually, this is what we've done
00:34:58.204 --> 00:34:59.284
in the space of three hours.
00:35:00.564 --> 00:35:03.544
And I always find, sitting on the other side of the table,
00:35:03.544 --> 00:35:06.304
well what i don't want is to be able to have all these
00:35:06.304 --> 00:35:09.024
lovely products and journeys it's great it's great
00:35:09.024 --> 00:35:11.844
for today thank you i'll go to market but we'll but
00:35:11.844 --> 00:35:14.764
we'll know that in reality you have to change
00:35:14.764 --> 00:35:18.144
them you have to chop and change them you have to create little branches you
00:35:18.144 --> 00:35:20.964
have to quickly spin up a new one and if
00:35:20.964 --> 00:35:23.684
you then have to go back to the vendor or the si to say i
00:35:23.684 --> 00:35:26.544
need and you're writing checks for change requests or
00:35:26.544 --> 00:35:29.324
suddenly they add up so being able to hand
00:35:29.324 --> 00:35:32.184
the keys to the car over okay in a controlled way
00:35:32.184 --> 00:35:35.144
they've got to learn it they've got to train they've got to be certified but so here's
00:35:35.144 --> 00:35:38.304
the keys this is how easy it is to make a pricing change
00:35:38.304 --> 00:35:41.064
or you want to spin up a a new variant of a
00:35:41.064 --> 00:35:43.804
mortgage or you want to add a new benefit or a new bundle in or
00:35:43.804 --> 00:35:46.444
this is how easy you can do it don't have to come to my master here you go
00:35:46.444 --> 00:35:49.144
go do it this is the agility you want in the business to
00:35:49.144 --> 00:35:53.084
be able to quickly go to market and i think if you look at you
00:35:53.084 --> 00:35:55.784
know handing over the keys in a controlled way you you had a
00:35:55.784 --> 00:35:58.324
stat from one of the clients that you spoke to the amount of money they were
00:35:58.324 --> 00:36:01.704
spending on change requests each year you think if you actually just brought
00:36:01.704 --> 00:36:04.604
that in-house you train up a couple of people that know how to use the platform
00:36:04.604 --> 00:36:08.484
and you maintain a strong working relationship with a vendor that business case
00:36:08.484 --> 00:36:12.104
in itself adds up instantly because you can drive all of that change yourself
00:36:12.104 --> 00:36:14.724
for a fraction of the price of what you were paying previously.
00:36:16.679 --> 00:36:19.639
Do you know how much they cost yeah come on yeah i mean this client
00:36:19.639 --> 00:36:22.779
was up there was a you know mid-tier specialist lender
00:36:22.779 --> 00:36:25.799
spending a quarter of a million a year on change requests and
00:36:25.799 --> 00:36:28.579
it wasn't that that shocked me it was the fact
00:36:28.579 --> 00:36:31.499
that they said we get no value from that so
00:36:31.499 --> 00:36:34.199
instead what we're going to do this year was we're not paying for any
00:36:34.199 --> 00:36:37.639
we're not using any of that change request budget and we are we
00:36:37.639 --> 00:36:40.739
have done an in-house development with a with a tech partner
00:36:40.739 --> 00:36:43.459
yeah um and and this is the way that i think a lot of people
00:36:43.459 --> 00:36:46.879
are going so if you're stuck with a vendor that
00:36:46.879 --> 00:36:49.719
doesn't hand over the keys then perhaps the
00:36:49.719 --> 00:36:52.579
decision to make is could spend that money on something else i
00:36:52.579 --> 00:36:55.999
guess you have to then get married to that vendor right you are you're
00:36:55.999 --> 00:36:58.899
stuck with them um i know obviously the contractual stuff them
00:36:58.899 --> 00:37:01.679
but you are it's very difficult to to move away
00:37:01.679 --> 00:37:04.819
and i think a platform that doesn't enable you
00:37:04.819 --> 00:37:07.959
to go out to the market and start partnering
00:37:07.959 --> 00:37:10.839
with other best-in-class services whether it
00:37:10.839 --> 00:37:14.519
be an eid and v player whether it be open banking open accounting and
00:37:14.519 --> 00:37:20.259
the ability to evolve your business and your product and your process if you
00:37:20.259 --> 00:37:24.459
are stuck to a platform that you then have to go and physically rebuild that
00:37:24.459 --> 00:37:27.799
stuff that i mean they all say the right things let's let's start with that
00:37:27.799 --> 00:37:30.639
they all say the right things when they come in to give their sales pitch about
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:32.719
being open about working partners flexibility.
00:37:33.359 --> 00:37:36.119
They will all do that but i think when you approach vendor
00:37:36.119 --> 00:37:40.279
selection as the client you need to understand because a lot of our clients
00:37:40.279 --> 00:37:44.979
are very honest and they're very straight and they and i think they're surprised
00:37:44.979 --> 00:37:48.519
that not all technology vendors are actually being entirely factual with them
00:37:48.519 --> 00:37:51.339
so that's something you've got to go with your eyes wide open what's the red
00:37:51.339 --> 00:37:55.839
flags what comes out what do you look for that's that's number one i think you you you look for,
00:37:56.478 --> 00:38:01.078
And tells on that, that the lies are creeping in are things where we can't show
00:38:01.078 --> 00:38:02.938
you it now. It's on the roadmap.
00:38:03.778 --> 00:38:07.018
Anything that's roadmap. Yeah, roadmap, that's a red flag.
00:38:07.538 --> 00:38:09.638
Oh, I'll just scrap my next question. Let's talk about roadmaps.
00:38:09.998 --> 00:38:13.718
No, obviously the roadmap is super important, but I think it's more about functionality
00:38:13.718 --> 00:38:15.258
that they're trying to say.
00:38:15.298 --> 00:38:17.638
It's critical to you as the client, but it's on the roadmap.
00:38:18.438 --> 00:38:23.418
The other red flag sometimes is, and again, this is personal to a client,
00:38:23.518 --> 00:38:24.838
it's the cultural fit of the organization.
00:38:24.838 --> 00:38:29.358
Yeah some someone you know a technology juggernaut
00:38:29.358 --> 00:38:32.138
that has you know is global with a massive balance sheet and
00:38:32.138 --> 00:38:34.998
that's going to work well from them others want to be a big
00:38:34.998 --> 00:38:37.838
fish in a small pond and i think all all different
00:38:37.838 --> 00:38:41.118
things that culturally matter so you know when i think
00:38:41.118 --> 00:38:46.118
you it's more about it's not about us as woodhurst looking for red red flags
00:38:46.118 --> 00:38:50.478
it's about helping understand what's going to be a red flag for our client and
00:38:50.478 --> 00:38:54.478
then helping them find those and then i wonder as well you know you want to
00:38:54.478 --> 00:38:57.718
probe into how much skin in the game the vendor has for the success of this
00:38:57.718 --> 00:39:00.918
implementation in the market because if you look at the ones that have failed.
00:39:01.658 --> 00:39:05.238
You kind of think well maybe they weren't that invested because woodhurst
00:39:05.238 --> 00:39:08.478
couldn't afford for a client not to have a successful program you
00:39:08.478 --> 00:39:11.298
know we cannot afford that and i know there are technology vendors
00:39:11.298 --> 00:39:14.158
that take the same approach so i'd be really looking for that and it's a red flag
00:39:14.158 --> 00:39:16.798
if if if um it's not to
00:39:16.798 --> 00:39:19.818
say that you can't work with tech vendors that have had you know a failure but
00:39:19.818 --> 00:39:22.578
what what's been what have they done since then what have they learned and
00:39:22.578 --> 00:39:25.758
what are they going to apply moving forward and and also what contractual
00:39:25.758 --> 00:39:28.898
commitments are they making to you to actually
00:39:28.898 --> 00:39:31.718
deliver on what they're promising i think that's super important and
00:39:31.718 --> 00:39:35.778
that sometimes comes out quite late in the day so i think with vendor selections
00:39:35.778 --> 00:39:39.018
have moved on a lot from the old traditional process of sort of sequentially
00:39:39.018 --> 00:39:42.698
going through a written thing a demo a signed contract and then let's try and
00:39:42.698 --> 00:39:47.058
implement you know a modern vendor selection also looks very different now to
00:39:47.058 --> 00:39:50.238
protect the client from these things surface things early um.
00:39:51.284 --> 00:39:56.564
Yeah, no, I agree. I think the cultural fit is really key, but I love this notion
00:39:56.564 --> 00:39:59.124
of equitable partnerships.
00:39:59.204 --> 00:40:04.424
And the skin in the game piece really resonates with me because maybe slightly
00:40:04.424 --> 00:40:08.464
larger players in the market, whether they win or they don't win,
00:40:08.544 --> 00:40:10.824
they can absorb the loss. It doesn't really matter.
00:40:11.064 --> 00:40:15.864
And I've seen it on the other side of the table where you work with a big-named
00:40:15.864 --> 00:40:21.144
SIO, a big-named vendor, and actually, with respect, you kind of get the Z team.
00:40:21.284 --> 00:40:24.524
Right you don't really get the 18 because there's no
00:40:24.524 --> 00:40:27.184
skin in the game so with a fintech s and
00:40:27.184 --> 00:40:30.404
some of the people we're talking about i cannot wait
00:40:30.404 --> 00:40:33.124
for announcements and and go to
00:40:33.124 --> 00:40:39.044
my god to be in because it's it's as important to us it's important to you as
00:40:39.044 --> 00:40:45.704
woodtors and talk to them that this is success and you will live die bleed until
00:40:45.704 --> 00:40:50.684
that's done yeah and and you know we talked about getting the contract sign and getting the,
00:40:50.784 --> 00:40:52.944
getting to be the preferred vendor is one thing.
00:40:53.764 --> 00:40:58.124
Implement it is the next thing. Yeah. Right. So a lot of these implementations
00:40:58.124 --> 00:41:01.244
will go wrong. And you know what? They will go wrong. You know what?
00:41:02.084 --> 00:41:06.824
No, there's never a smooth implementation. There'll always be like kind of ups and downs.
00:41:07.284 --> 00:41:11.124
And I think that goes back to what you said about being able to work with people,
00:41:11.324 --> 00:41:13.444
the honesty piece, the roadmap.
00:41:13.744 --> 00:41:15.984
If you're something, it's something you can't do, but you can show you can do
00:41:15.984 --> 00:41:17.584
it and you're honest about it.
00:41:18.057 --> 00:41:23.617
Then fantastic you build towards that but you know you you you must have seen some.
00:41:24.277 --> 00:41:27.277
You've probably seen the good the bad and the ugly yeah in terms
00:41:27.277 --> 00:41:30.077
of implementations definitely i think we're quite
00:41:30.077 --> 00:41:32.897
now quite well known in the sector for running these
00:41:32.897 --> 00:41:35.957
vendor selections helping clients make difficult decisions around
00:41:35.957 --> 00:41:39.137
technology with you know all the facts we're now
00:41:39.137 --> 00:41:42.057
um involved with a lot of our clients supporting these
00:41:42.057 --> 00:41:44.677
implementations you know we we want skin in the game we don't want to just
00:41:44.677 --> 00:41:47.657
walk away at the point they've selected the new technology provider and we want
00:41:47.657 --> 00:41:50.317
to actually see the business case delivered and we're learning a
00:41:50.317 --> 00:41:53.017
lot and this there's a lot of good lessons to be learned and i
00:41:53.017 --> 00:41:56.377
think some of the what's gone wrong well last
00:41:56.377 --> 00:41:59.397
year actually encouraged us to interview a bunch of people across the
00:41:59.397 --> 00:42:02.517
specialist lending sector about implementations what
00:42:02.517 --> 00:42:05.237
they wish they would have done differently what's worked well yeah so that
00:42:05.237 --> 00:42:08.517
report if you're interested has lots of great sound bites from people
00:42:08.517 --> 00:42:11.257
at the coalface on the client site on this on our
00:42:11.257 --> 00:42:14.477
website on the website yeah on the uh and uh on the woodhurst implementation
00:42:14.477 --> 00:42:17.317
report um so when i thought about
00:42:17.317 --> 00:42:20.057
this often they go wrong before they even
00:42:20.057 --> 00:42:23.857
begin so there's just misaligned expectations the
00:42:23.857 --> 00:42:26.677
vendor thinks that the client fully understands their
00:42:26.677 --> 00:42:29.857
solution okay um which is impossible isn't
00:42:29.857 --> 00:42:33.577
it really because their solution is often vast and highly configurable um
00:42:33.577 --> 00:42:36.677
the client the bank the specialist lender the
00:42:36.677 --> 00:42:39.437
building society thinks that this solution is going to solve
00:42:39.437 --> 00:42:42.677
all their pain points so you're going in with these massively misaligned
00:42:42.677 --> 00:42:45.917
expectations there's been no real honest conversation about are
00:42:45.917 --> 00:42:48.557
you adopting or you're adapting and you know there's a lot of
00:42:48.557 --> 00:42:51.217
heat you know heat thrown on the vendors but equally i think there's some
00:42:51.217 --> 00:42:53.957
heat to be thrown on on the clients to say you know.
00:42:53.957 --> 00:42:56.717
You're kind of telling them that you want to adopt this amazing solution that you
00:42:56.717 --> 00:43:00.417
see delivering amazing benefits elsewhere at your competitors but
00:43:00.417 --> 00:43:03.537
then you've actually got to come to the table being prepared to adopt so there's
00:43:03.537 --> 00:43:06.797
that too but equally you know on the other side i think the vendors sometimes
00:43:06.797 --> 00:43:10.337
paint a picture that you know it's all figured out it doesn't have to be you
00:43:10.337 --> 00:43:15.057
know customized and implemented for them they talk about pre-configured implementations
00:43:15.057 --> 00:43:18.237
integrations this is this is just often just.
00:43:18.723 --> 00:43:21.663
Nonsense and implement integrations is
00:43:21.663 --> 00:43:24.603
a big thing that you could probably have a whole podcast about because
00:43:24.603 --> 00:43:27.943
no one really understands and there's always work to be done sometimes
00:43:27.943 --> 00:43:30.903
there's less work to be done but that really is where
00:43:30.903 --> 00:43:33.743
a lot of these things go wrong because the integrations can't
00:43:33.743 --> 00:43:37.703
be done and how that data flows down exactly um and
00:43:37.703 --> 00:43:40.383
you know i think um it's not
00:43:40.383 --> 00:43:43.643
all about vendor selection um i think you you've
00:43:43.643 --> 00:43:46.783
got to actually really then focus on
00:43:46.783 --> 00:43:49.523
that that point that we've made throughout the
00:43:49.523 --> 00:43:52.383
podcast around finding a partner that's going
00:43:52.383 --> 00:43:55.423
to be credible in the implementation front is open
00:43:55.423 --> 00:43:58.583
to working with partners as well that doesn't use that that
00:43:58.583 --> 00:44:01.823
part of their doesn't turn the professional services part
00:44:01.823 --> 00:44:05.523
of their business into one of their main revenue generators because by
00:44:05.523 --> 00:44:08.543
doing that by being open to working with partners delivery
00:44:08.543 --> 00:44:11.483
partners they're they're taking some accountability that they
00:44:11.483 --> 00:44:14.523
can't sort of point the finger at themselves when things aren't being delivered yeah absolutely
00:44:14.523 --> 00:44:17.783
um but yeah what do you think mark i think i think um i
00:44:17.783 --> 00:44:20.603
think about you guys actually an interesting spot because you're
00:44:20.603 --> 00:44:24.063
with the customer at the very outset where you're almost defining the problem um
00:44:24.063 --> 00:44:28.543
and you're helping them along that journey you're going through a quite a large
00:44:28.543 --> 00:44:32.863
process of looking out into the marketplace finding out who the players are
00:44:32.863 --> 00:44:36.843
and trying to fit that together like a jigsaw puzzle and then you hold the hand
00:44:36.843 --> 00:44:40.523
through the selection process and you know very active within that process when
00:44:40.523 --> 00:44:43.923
they're asking the right questions probing the right things talking about a lot of things here.
00:44:44.563 --> 00:44:49.123
Holding people accountable, talking about roadmaps, actually pinning people down.
00:44:49.723 --> 00:44:56.063
And then why it would be an absolute natural step to then take ownership of
00:44:56.063 --> 00:45:01.163
it and say, actually, you've added so much value from that point to that point. To walk away from.
00:45:02.258 --> 00:45:05.298
Is almost bonkers because you've
00:45:05.298 --> 00:45:08.198
built a relationship and one of the themes of this podcast has
00:45:08.198 --> 00:45:11.118
always been about people and culture about you know people still buying
00:45:11.118 --> 00:45:14.458
people and that expertise and and and experience
00:45:14.458 --> 00:45:17.558
to then take a a leap
00:45:17.558 --> 00:45:20.438
into the actual delivery of it and you so well
00:45:20.438 --> 00:45:23.618
placed to see how things have gone well and gone wrong
00:45:23.618 --> 00:45:27.438
but you've got the relationship and you understand the business through the
00:45:27.438 --> 00:45:33.018
implementation i think you know that would be such a natural step to take into
00:45:33.018 --> 00:45:37.698
build sites and into specialist lenders as well because you've got that you've
00:45:37.698 --> 00:45:41.418
got that that level of know-how yeah that is desperately like and then.
00:45:42.498 --> 00:45:45.478
When you go into an impact, touch your partners, obviously they have to learn
00:45:45.478 --> 00:45:49.698
the technology, they have to relearn all that stuff.
00:45:50.418 --> 00:45:54.038
You've already got some of that. I just think it's just a natural piece that
00:45:54.038 --> 00:45:56.458
you should be doing without kind of self-canalizing.
00:45:56.738 --> 00:46:04.858
I think the position we take with our, let's say our most successful clients
00:46:04.858 --> 00:46:10.638
or the clients that we feel we are adding value to the most is as a transformation partner.
00:46:10.638 --> 00:46:13.838
End-to-end transformation partner from that point of call
00:46:13.838 --> 00:46:16.998
it problem definition or even sort of success metric definition
00:46:16.998 --> 00:46:20.018
right at the outset what is that north star and how do we help you achieve that
00:46:20.018 --> 00:46:23.118
all the way through you know it's not about selecting the
00:46:23.118 --> 00:46:25.958
technology it's not about implementing the technology it's about
00:46:25.958 --> 00:46:28.758
actually achieving your transformation objectives and
00:46:28.758 --> 00:46:31.578
taking you through that whole journey being able to add
00:46:31.578 --> 00:46:34.638
um the insight the expertise
00:46:34.638 --> 00:46:37.638
the capabilities that woodhurst has across that
00:46:37.638 --> 00:46:40.498
end to end um and supplement and support the
00:46:40.498 --> 00:46:43.458
clients and also to the point of skin in the game you
00:46:43.458 --> 00:46:46.738
know making sure we set up commercially for that i again i
00:46:46.738 --> 00:46:50.118
think our most successful commercial engagements are
00:46:50.118 --> 00:46:56.418
based on transformation outcomes not implementation deliverables not um completing
00:46:56.418 --> 00:47:00.598
an rfp within two months or whatever it may be it's on okay you actually want
00:47:00.598 --> 00:47:04.158
to achieve these things what is the extent to which woodhurst can help you achieve
00:47:04.158 --> 00:47:08.438
those things and measure our success on that and measure our commercial sort
00:47:08.438 --> 00:47:09.818
of ability on that as well.
00:47:10.018 --> 00:47:14.478
And that's where I think we see the most success and where we're able to support
00:47:14.478 --> 00:47:16.778
the success of our clients the most. Yeah, definitely.
00:47:17.158 --> 00:47:20.518
Yeah. I think we've talked a lot about building sites today,
00:47:20.698 --> 00:47:25.158
but you say specialist lenders, tier two banks are in exactly the same position. Yeah.
00:47:25.398 --> 00:47:30.138
There is so much innovation and transformation that's required in our industry
00:47:30.138 --> 00:47:32.098
across those segments as...
00:47:32.803 --> 00:47:35.783
As they start to mature and evolve into you
00:47:35.783 --> 00:47:39.023
know a new way of this blend this hybrid approach
00:47:39.023 --> 00:47:41.963
of digital and human and having this
00:47:41.963 --> 00:47:45.343
open ecosystem where you kind of play with
00:47:45.343 --> 00:47:48.043
third parties and you can bring them into the journey and and
00:47:48.043 --> 00:47:50.683
start to normally reduce the cost to
00:47:50.683 --> 00:47:54.903
serve but to drive efficiency into into
00:47:54.903 --> 00:47:57.803
your process and notice i mentioned ai once in
00:47:57.803 --> 00:48:00.663
this piece but until you and once you get that then you've
00:48:00.663 --> 00:48:05.963
got the data structure correct and then you supercharge it with ai um it doesn't
00:48:05.963 --> 00:48:09.763
mean replacing a whole bunch of people but it just makes i keep using the same
00:48:09.763 --> 00:48:14.743
phrase about people have to be comfortable from being doers to being reviewers
00:48:14.743 --> 00:48:19.063
and that's that that'll be the cycle change for me and i think i think you guys would be,
00:48:19.983 --> 00:48:24.243
fantastic in that in that delivery piece and i'm sure we'll um,
00:48:25.124 --> 00:48:28.984
I'm sure you will be successful once you get into that notion.
00:48:29.964 --> 00:48:33.744
Anyway, look, we're coming to now. I'm seeing the clock flashing in the background.
00:48:33.744 --> 00:48:38.344
So we're coming to an end of the podcast. And I always like to finish on a kind
00:48:38.344 --> 00:48:40.864
of an eye on the future. And we've talked about it a lot, to be fair, already.
00:48:41.104 --> 00:48:46.684
So I guess, Ben, I'll turn to you first. So in any game, there's winners and losers, right?
00:48:46.724 --> 00:48:54.364
Yeah. So, what will it take for Tier 2 Specialist Alternative Building Societies
00:48:54.364 --> 00:48:57.704
to be a winner in the next three, five years?
00:48:58.184 --> 00:49:02.144
So, we think the winners in the next three to five years are going to be those
00:49:02.144 --> 00:49:07.984
that have absolutely maxed out on their modernization investment case throughout.
00:49:07.984 --> 00:49:11.084
So they a lot of them are in in a period of
00:49:11.084 --> 00:49:14.224
real big investment to make that big jump
00:49:14.224 --> 00:49:16.864
probably from a legacy place to you know
00:49:16.864 --> 00:49:19.624
modern tech and a modern data framework to support it
00:49:19.624 --> 00:49:22.964
but they won't stop there you know the ones that we're working with who are
00:49:22.964 --> 00:49:26.064
really ambitious yeah they've re-platformed their core into the cloud they've
00:49:26.064 --> 00:49:29.264
put a new front end in but now they're looking at what's next what does that
00:49:29.264 --> 00:49:34.504
enable so they're making similarly large investments in in that so So the winners
00:49:34.504 --> 00:49:38.304
are definitely going to put the pedal to the metal with the investment in modernization.
00:49:38.524 --> 00:49:40.904
Of course, I would say that because we're there to support that.
00:49:41.044 --> 00:49:46.004
But I think that is a view that is backed up by evidence in the performance of these that do.
00:49:46.484 --> 00:49:52.164
The others, the winners will have also exploited their biggest underutilized
00:49:52.164 --> 00:49:54.104
asset at the moment, which is their data.
00:49:54.344 --> 00:49:59.624
So I think it was the head of innovation at the FCA last week when I saw him at talk was saying.
00:50:00.458 --> 00:50:03.398
The every lender in the you know next 10
00:50:03.398 --> 00:50:06.198
years will have modern technology because the ones that won't have
00:50:06.198 --> 00:50:09.118
it will no longer exist so then
00:50:09.118 --> 00:50:11.878
what differentiates you from each other and he was talking
00:50:11.878 --> 00:50:14.778
to a room full of banks and building societies and the
00:50:14.778 --> 00:50:17.758
answer is your data so we're working
00:50:17.758 --> 00:50:20.978
with clients as well now that the modernization isn't just about
00:50:20.978 --> 00:50:23.818
selecting the modern technology but it's about doing the
00:50:23.818 --> 00:50:26.638
work on the data to your point about the ai
00:50:26.638 --> 00:50:29.398
piece won't ever really work until they've got their data in
00:50:29.398 --> 00:50:32.198
a good state so the winners will have addressed that and
00:50:32.198 --> 00:50:35.258
that again we're sort of seeing especially at bigger end
00:50:35.258 --> 00:50:38.118
you've got your programs that are doing sort of
00:50:38.118 --> 00:50:41.298
modern tech replacement you've also actually now
00:50:41.298 --> 00:50:44.378
people calling it out as a data modernization separately and
00:50:44.378 --> 00:50:47.638
at smaller clients they can just be combined into the single program so
00:50:47.638 --> 00:50:52.098
winners will do that and and we'll see the winners will be doing double the
00:50:52.098 --> 00:50:55.578
amount of lending that they're doing today with roughly the same headcount their
00:50:55.578 --> 00:50:58.918
colleagues will be far more empowered doing much more interesting work like
00:50:58.918 --> 00:51:02.938
you say reviewing spending time with the members spending time educating brokers
00:51:02.938 --> 00:51:06.378
on innovative products that's a big thing that's holding people back i hear at the moment which is.
00:51:07.219 --> 00:51:11.679
The complexity of getting across innovative products to a broker, that takes time.
00:51:11.799 --> 00:51:14.259
There's no time to do that because everyone's pushing paper around and dealing
00:51:14.259 --> 00:51:16.439
with the convoluted processes.
00:51:16.679 --> 00:51:19.599
So winners will be doing that. And that's exciting. So I think working for a
00:51:19.599 --> 00:51:22.799
lender is going to be so much more exciting in three to five years as well.
00:51:23.959 --> 00:51:26.379
So we'll see that. And then I didn't want to make it about the losers,
00:51:26.499 --> 00:51:29.399
but losers simply won't be doing that stuff.
00:51:29.519 --> 00:51:32.819
And I think I was speaking to one recently who sort of took the view that,
00:51:33.419 --> 00:51:36.179
well, if I can't do it myself, why should i
00:51:36.179 --> 00:51:39.079
be doing it and i sort of took the comparison with
00:51:39.079 --> 00:51:41.739
with them around well that's a
00:51:41.739 --> 00:51:44.579
question for you know are you going to put insulation in your house and
00:51:44.579 --> 00:51:47.479
modernize your house so that you can get a good energy efficiency rate
00:51:47.479 --> 00:51:50.419
rating and enjoy living there or do you you know you don't
00:51:50.419 --> 00:51:53.519
you don't have to become the world's best diy you you can work
00:51:53.519 --> 00:51:56.159
with the right tech vendor partners and the
00:51:56.159 --> 00:51:58.979
right other partners i think the winners will be
00:51:58.979 --> 00:52:01.639
doing that because regardless of the size of your
00:52:01.639 --> 00:52:04.859
organization if you're big you can work with more partners a
00:52:04.859 --> 00:52:07.799
bigger skin if you're small you'll you'll pick your partners but
00:52:07.799 --> 00:52:10.599
we're already seeing the ones that having more success with their
00:52:10.599 --> 00:52:13.879
modernization that they've they've picked really good partners with skin in
00:52:13.879 --> 00:52:17.139
the game and they're contributing a lot they're not doing it on their own great
00:52:17.139 --> 00:52:21.219
answer great answer and josh i'm going to give you the last word yeah this is
00:52:21.219 --> 00:52:25.239
no pressure but this is what everybody's going to hone in on this is your advice
00:52:25.239 --> 00:52:28.059
yeah what would be your advice for i guess.
00:52:29.619 --> 00:52:33.619
What would make a successful transformation in 2026?
00:52:33.879 --> 00:52:36.159
That is an outrageous amount of pressure, isn't it? It is, yeah.
00:52:37.419 --> 00:52:41.579
It's just a small question. It's going to be a bit better to you to answer this
00:52:41.579 --> 00:52:44.259
one. I can't even respond and just say, great, either.
00:52:45.499 --> 00:52:50.879
No, what would make a successful transformation? Ben's mentioned a number of things.
00:52:51.139 --> 00:52:54.199
I think for me, it comes back to the point of.
00:52:54.742 --> 00:53:00.222
We said earlier, it's a very fragmented market, sort of the lending space,
00:53:00.422 --> 00:53:03.142
specialist lending space across all of those different players that you mentioned,
00:53:03.302 --> 00:53:06.402
sub-sectors that you mentioned. So it's a very competitive market.
00:53:06.722 --> 00:53:11.222
So for me, I think the starting point has to be work out what it is that you want to achieve,
00:53:11.522 --> 00:53:14.782
work out what it is that you are known for and incredibly good at,
00:53:14.882 --> 00:53:18.222
because there are so many different flavors of lending,
00:53:18.482 --> 00:53:21.542
specialist lending, products etc double down
00:53:21.542 --> 00:53:25.322
on that and understand what are those strategically placed
00:53:25.322 --> 00:53:28.542
investments that you can make to actually push that
00:53:28.542 --> 00:53:32.222
ambition forward so where do you start chunking
00:53:32.222 --> 00:53:35.082
up the elephant where do you start eating the elephant and drive
00:53:35.082 --> 00:53:38.262
down that list in a sort of strategic systematic
00:53:38.262 --> 00:53:41.422
very considered way but giving yourself the flexibility
00:53:41.422 --> 00:53:44.182
to change along the journey if you need to
00:53:44.182 --> 00:53:47.182
to course correct and work with
00:53:47.182 --> 00:53:50.322
the right internal people the right partners
00:53:50.322 --> 00:53:53.002
free up the right capacity across your team the right
00:53:53.002 --> 00:53:55.982
capability across your team to actually enable that success
00:53:55.982 --> 00:53:58.742
but for me it all starts at that what's our
00:53:58.742 --> 00:54:01.562
strategic intent what do we want to be known for and then
00:54:01.562 --> 00:54:05.182
really focusing through on what do we need to do to achieve that if
00:54:05.182 --> 00:54:08.122
you go in with a considered plan you are
00:54:08.122 --> 00:54:11.102
so much more likely to be successful if you go in
00:54:11.102 --> 00:54:14.742
half-baked slightly uncertain following the
00:54:14.742 --> 00:54:18.642
herd not really clear on what your competitive advantage is it's so much harder
00:54:18.642 --> 00:54:21.762
to be successful every single time and if you're not sure what it then takes
00:54:21.762 --> 00:54:25.462
to achieve what you're trying to do then yeah you're just set up for failure
00:54:25.462 --> 00:54:31.442
yeah well look if uh any listeners or viewers uh need help with coming up with that plan.
00:54:32.525 --> 00:54:37.425
Come visit the website of Woodhurst Consolidant. Look up Ben, look up Josh.
00:54:37.905 --> 00:54:40.905
You've listened to their wise words today. We've reached the end.
00:54:41.045 --> 00:54:45.545
I want to just thank you both for your time and your considered opinions today.
00:54:46.465 --> 00:54:50.205
Thank you for the partnership we've had over the last 12, 80 months.
00:54:50.285 --> 00:54:52.625
I think we're going to burst some great success out of that.
00:54:52.725 --> 00:54:56.445
I can't wait for some news to hit the market in that regard.
00:54:57.385 --> 00:55:03.365
And here's to 2026 and hopefully some additional successes together.
00:55:03.585 --> 00:55:06.285
Thank you both very much. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Cheers.