Technology transformation in banking has been underway for more than a decade, yet many programs still fail to deliver the returns boards expect. For leaders like Ken Raymie, the question is less whether to invest and more how to focus on what reliably works—and avoid repeating the same expensive lessons.
Industry data underscores the execution gap. McKinsey has found that a majority of digital banking transformations either fail to reach their stated goals or capture only a fraction of their projected value, often because operating models and processes are left largely unchanged. BCG estimates that only about 30–35% of large-scale tech transformations fully meet their objectives on time and on budget. The pattern is clear: technology alone doesn’t move the needle; execution discipline does.
Start With Outcomes, Not Technology
Programs that work begin with a small set of concrete business outcomes and customer journeys, then work backward to the technology stack. McKinsey’s analysis of banks that consistently outperform on shareholder value shows that they tightly link tech spend to measurable business impact, such as cost-to-income ratio, digital sales, and retention, rather than generic modernization goals.
This tends to produce a different roadmap. Instead of “modernize the app” or “migrate to cloud,” the agenda becomes “cut time-to-yes for small-business credit decisions by 50%” or “shift 30% of call volume to digital self-service.” Technology choices follow from those targets, rather than define them. Outside research on digital and AI programs also shows that top performers select a limited number of journeys and scale them end-to-end, rather than piloting dozens of disconnected proofs of concept.
Another consistent pattern in banks that turn technology into results is a willingness to tackle the core systems and data, not just the front end. McKinsey notes that many failed transformations leave legacy IT and “spaghetti” data architectures largely intact, which forces new digital channels to depend on brittle back ends and fragmented data stores.
By contrast, institutions that invest in a modern, cloud-enabled core and cleaner data architecture see much greater flexibility in launching products and embedding analytics. Accenture’s research suggests that banks shifting to a modern digital core can achieve substantially higher revenue growth and profit improvements than peers, in part because they can iterate products faster and automate more of their middle and back office. Those moves only make sense when they are explicitly tied to specific use cases, such as real-time credit decisioning, rather than to an abstract “core replacement.”
Execution and Organization Matter More Than Tools
Successful transformation also changes how work is organized. McKinsey emphasizes that banks relying heavily on outsourced talent and traditional project structures see higher failure rates than those that build strong in-house technology teams and adopt cross-functional, agile ways of working. Successful programs place at least half of the transformation workforce within the bank, embed business and tech staff in the same teams, and provide them with clear outcome metrics.
Cloud and AI intensify this need. Accenture’s cloud and AI “rotation index” finds that banks further along in cloud adoption, with integrated AI use cases, are already seeing meaningful improvements in return on equity and cost-to-income ratios; but those results correlate with hybrid-cloud strategies, operating-model changes, and targeted upskilling, not with lift-and-shift migrations alone. In practice, the organizations that improve performance are the ones that rethink roles, decision rights, and incentives around the new stack.
For Ken Raymie, what “actually works” in technology transformation is less about any single platform choice and more about this combination of behaviors: start from outcomes, modernize the core and data that constrain those outcomes, and reorganize work around multidisciplinary teams. In a sector where digital capability is now table stakes, those execution choices are what separate banks that quietly reset their performance curve from those still wondering why the latest wave of investment looks so familiar.