Celent with Awaad Amir (Analyst) & Neil Sheehan (Analyst) | E114

Everything from voice response, to innovation inside of fortune 500s.

Summary:

In this 114th episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host interviews Neil Sheehan and Awaad Amir who both work in the roles of Research & Advisory at Celent. Celent is a consultant to large financial and Fortune 500 institutions that deals with how they can better adapt to technological challenges that they are facing. Awaad Amir and Neil Sheehan discuss the uses and developments of voice activation. 

Episode Highlights: 

● 01:15 – Neal Sheehan and Awaad Amir define Celent and how it got started. 

● 02:43 – Why was Celent created as an offshoot of Oliver Wyman? 

● 04:28 – What kind of developments have they seen arising with voice? 

● 08:23 – They discuss some of the obstacles that voice has to overcome still. 

● 13:14 – What are some of the use cases for voice? 

● 19:22: – How many banks in Canada and the United States are using Virtual assistants? 

● 22:50 – Voice accuracy and privacy issues are still not fully resolved. 

● 24:53 – What is involved on the backend for delivering the best experience? 

● 27:11 – Clean data is crucial to build new initiatives and products. 

● 32:53 – Innovation labs are important for banks to create new solutions. 

● 35:26 – What would they change in their business or industry? 

● 37:17: – What have been the biggest challenges that they face? 

● 41:31: – What is the most exciting thing that they are working on? 

3 Key Points 

1. All the major banks in Canada and the United States are experimenting with voice interactions. 

2. We have the legal right to our data and to have it requested in a reasonable amount of time. 

3. The industry needs to continue to educate those that use their services. 

Tweetable Quotes: 

● “Celent is a technology research and advisory firm that is a subsidiary of Oliver Wyman, which is a global management consulting firm.” – Awaad Amir 

● “We do have a software application on our website that is called VendorMatch where vendors can go on and put their applications on there, 

put a demo, a white sheet, any type of information on facts on the products.” – Neil Sheehan 

● “What is so unique about voice, unlike desktop, mobile computing, it is an interface that the user has to learn. So, the voice kind of flips that around where it is the natural language of the person.” – Awaad Amir 

Resources Mentioned: 

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s 

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s 

● FintechImpact.co – Website 

● JasonPereira.ca – Jason Pereira’s newsletter 

● Linkedin – Neil Sheehan’s 

● Linkedin – Awaad Amir’s 

● Celent – Website

● VendorMatch –Webpage for Celent