In 2019, IDC completed a global research study, sponsored by NetApp, to understand the characteristics of the most-mature financial services organizations in the way they manage data and digital technologies, and to draw lessons about how financial services organizations can expand their use of digital technologies to enhance consumer and business outcomes.

Financial Services Data Thrivers are operationalizing rich and varied organizational data to transform the way they do business internally and externally. Best-in-class financial services firms look to technology as a source of competitive differentiation in terms of improving their customer experience. They:

• Leverage data to improve security of their products and services, and to expand customer engagement.
• Are more concerned with automating customer-facing functions and customer communications.
• Embrace public cloud cautiously and prefer software-as-a-service when they do