Companies often think they have to choose between being efficient and keeping customers happy. This false choice has held back countless modernization efforts. David Fapohunda, whose work involves analyzing customer needs and implementing innovative operational strategies in banking, sees things differently. His experience suggests that efficiency and customer value actually work together when approached correctly.
Focusing on Future Customer Needs
Fapohunda spends his time thinking about “what customers’ anticipated needs are in the near and far future.” This forward-thinking approach drives everything his organization does. Rather than only responding to current complaints or feedback, he’s also focused on where customer expectations are heading. The research goes beyond banking too. “What influences your customers today are not just their experiences with you, but also their interactions with other organizations and companies,” he explains. Customers don’t compartmentalize their experiences. If they get fast, seamless service from their ride-sharing app, they expect the same from their bank. The pandemic changed things permanently. Customers who spent months “engaging in meaningful connections with their friends and family through technology” became comfortable using technology for complex financial tasks. “Their comfort in leveraging technology for more complicated financial planning and servicing became less of a barrier to overcome,” Fapohunda notes.
Simplifying Processes to Build Trust
Many organizations get stuck on a basic misunderstanding. “There’s a misconception that having efficiency is misaligned with customer values,” Fapohunda says. His experience shows the opposite is true. “As you simplify your processes and reduce the friction both internally and externally, by nature of that, you are also creating an enhanced customer experience.” When customers can get what they need quickly and clearly, often proactively, they develop “a heightened sense of satisfaction and trust with the organization.” Meanwhile, those same simplified processes reduce costs, improve scalability, and free up resources for innovation. “So it’s a win-win,” he concludes.
Restructuring Around Customer Experience
Technical upgrades get all the attention, but Fapohunda sees bigger problems. “Organizations focus mostly on the technical aspects,” he observes. “They need to think about the process and the organizational structure as well.” The solution involves restructuring cross disciplined teams around customer journeys rather than functional hierarchies. This means “aligning the structures to more customer-centric frameworks that empower colleagues throughout the organization to make decisions that are focused on enhancing that customer experience.”
Legacy systems create another roadblock. Organizations often have “platforms that have existed for a number of years that are often outdated or costly to maintain or enhance.” Fapohunda recommends “consolidating to the few but important core platforms” to enable faster responses to changing customer needs. Data fragmentation compounds these problems. “Data has been stored in fragments across organizations and that has hampered the ability to adopt more modern decision sciences,” he explains. Companies need centralized data storage and cloud migration to “rapidly embrace new advanced analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities.”
Tracking Metrics That Reduce Friction
Most modernization efforts lack proper monitoring. Fapohunda emphasizes “having the right instrumentation as you go through process engineering simplification.” Organizations should track process time, handle time, and cost per episode to identify where customers face the most friction. This measurement provides “transparency as to where the problems are” while showing “how your changes are affecting your customer journeys, your processes, and in some cases your controls within the organization.” With good data, companies can make targeted investments and measure results confidently.
Fapohunda has strong opinions about artificial intelligence in operations. “I have high confidence that the anticipated efficiencies that it can provide will be realized,” he states. But he’s skeptical about timing. “I think that there is increased overhype on when they will be delivered.” Near-term applications will focus on assistance rather than replacement. “Things such as a copilot or an agentic copilot are realities for the 2025-2026 timeline.” Full automation will take longer as companies work through guardrails, controls, and legal issues around “having an AI proxy or intermediary acting on your behalf.” The human element won’t disappear. Fapohunda predicts entry-level workers will become “managers of agents” rather than losing their jobs entirely. They’ll oversee automated processes and handle escalations that exceed the system’s tolerance levels.
He draws parallels to ATM introduction. “When the ATMs were first introduced, there was a significant fear that branch employees’ jobs would go away.” Instead, as ATMs handled basic transactions, “the number of branch employees actually increased.” Their roles evolved from cash handling to “sales, service, account lifecycle management, and financial support, which created new value for the banks and most importantly the moments that matter needs of the customers.” The same transformation awaits back-office operations as AI matures.
Connect with David Fapohunda on LinkedIn to explore more insights on customer value and efficiency.
