The worlds of work and of financial services are changing at high speed. Consumer expectations are rising as financial services companies face growing competition from digital startups and technology companies that are setting new benchmarks for customer and workforce experiences. At the same time, a new generation is entering the workforce, bringing with it new demands of the workplace and new ways of thinking and collaborating.

From big data to the Internet of Things to intelligent automation, the pace of technology change, too, is accelerating. Disruptive technologies that automate mundane tasks and processes, or that augment human expertise, creativity and skill with real-time information and new capabilities will completely change the shape of the financial services workforce over the next five to 10 years.

Accenture economic value modelling estimates that Seven to 10 percent of tasks in the financial services workforce could be automated by 2025, while 43-48 percent could be augmented with technology. The resulting cost savings and productivity gains could deliver between $87 billion and $140 billion of cumulative value for the North American financial services industry between 2018 and 2025.

Despite the size of this opportunity, automation projects at many banks, insurance carriers and capital market firms are small-scale, tactical and siloed by nature, practices that dilute full value capture.

If financial services organizations are to unlock the value proposition of the new workforce and the next wave of digital technologies, they need to take a top-down, cross-functional view of the roles and functions in the enterprise to understand where they can drive the most value. Then they need to focus strategically on the roles that are best suited to being reinvented through the application of automation, and that offer the most potential for rapid and sustainable return on investment.

Finally, they should have a point of view on what to do with the capacity released through automation, consistent with the values of the organization. How financial services business leaders respond to the challenges and opportunities of a changing social, economic and technology landscape today will determine their readiness to compete in a different world tomorrow.