Orgs Stand To Benefit From Stronger Collaboration In Payments
FROM THE COLLABORATION REPORT
Finding 01: Executives Are Split On Collaboration’s Importance
For payments consultant and 27-year industry veteran Yvette Bohanan, the relatively new concept of “holistic payments” effectively captures the mindset that she and her colleagues at Glenbrook believe is necessary for innovation-minded executives to possess. “Payments is a team sport,” she said. “There’s no one person or functional role in any organization that’s strictly only doing payments.” And yet one-third of executives do not view cross-functional collaboration and information sharing as a key aspect of fueling payment innovation, according to the survey. The level of commitment to collaboration was also measured when the survey asked respondents if they agreed that C-suite executives at their organizations are fully aligned on a holistic payments strategy. Only 50% agreed. “When we say payments is a team sport, what we’re really saying is break down your silos,” Bohanan said.
of executives did not agree with the idea that cross-functional collaboration and information sharing is crucial to driving payment innovation, signaling room for improvement.
Source: Forbes Insights Survey commissioned by American Express, 2023
34%
Finding 02: Product Development Teams Rank Lowest In Collaboration
As product development leaders consider what team goals to emphasize in the new year, they may want to consider strengthening collaboration with other teams on payments. Across 10 functions, product development teams collaborate the least (54% of executives said they currently collaborate). Product development teams also ranked highest among functions that need to collaborate more (as cited by 42% of executives). The finding may reflect the need for organizations to build products with payments in mind from the early stages—instead of waiting until the end of the dev process to bring in colleagues from payments and treasury. “Stuff is going on all the time here in payments, and it has implications for everybody,” Bohanan said. “You have to make sure that everyone in the organization understands their role and the importance of their role in that journey.”
Top Collaborators
In addition to payments and treasury teams, which of the following functions consistently collaborate on initiatives to innovate payments in your organization? (Respondents selected all that apply.)
Finance & Accounting
Customer Support
General Management
Source: Forbes Insights Survey commissioned by American Express, 2023
73%
72%
70%
Source: Forbes Insights Survey commissioned by American Express, 2023
of executives ranked the development of risk mitigation strategies as a top-three way to prepare for payment trends and respond to them.
20%
While executives ranked enhanced cybersecurity and automated fraud detection among the top five ways to prepare for and respond to payment trends, developing risk mitigation strategies ranked only ninth out of 13 possible tactics. The latter finding suggests room for improvement. Bohanan says cross-team risk management strategies are particularly important in preventing first-party fraud, the kind committed by customers. One example involves repeat customers providing different email addresses each time they shop to secure that coveted first-time customer discount, Bohanan said. Organizations can deter and detect such behavior by offering different incentives for repeat customers and using finance and cybersecurity technology to flag fraudsters, she said. “You can put controls in, but that's again, holistically, your marketing program and your risk program people and your finance people and your IT people who can identify this as the same person coming in,” she said.
Finding 03: More Collaboration Needed To Fight Fraud
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