What are the latest trends in business world? An impressive raise in regulatory, compliance and risk management requirements together with an exponential growth of data that corporations struggle to manage. The idea behind Governance.com is a spot-on observation and vision of our founders, Bert (CEO) and Rob Boerman (CTO) to allow regulated entities to connect and structure their data.
As a Regtech, our purpose is to allow our clients to structure and simplify their data and control their business by building their workflows, checklists and activities around it. Governance.com is a totally flexible and customizable central system which can be interfaced with legacy and external systems of our clients. All their data and operational flows are centrally linked and easily accessible via our platform. This explains our continuous growth and recognition among the industry (winning Fintech of the year Award in 2016 in LU, included on Fintech 50 2018 and Global 100 Regtech in 2017).
We all know that a revolutionary vision and performant system do not guarantee commercial success. Regtech is a relatively young concept which has to show all its potential and concrete value to traditional companies. I truly believe that the key for a successful collaboration lies on an open and transparent communication. The biggest concern and pain point of Regtech companies is the lengthy decision and procurement process of the companies. There is no point to get frustrated on this as we have no control on this process. I believe the optimal way to build long-lasting relationships is to focus on the challenges, needs and culture of our clients. An intensive risk assessment, a multi-layer decision taking and procurement process is part of the DNA of the regulated companies we are talking to. So, either deal with it or stay aside for Regtech CCOs.
This is one of the first strategic decisions I have taken as Commercial Director: rather than beginning to talk how marvelous and innovative our solution is (and I truly believe Governance.com is an awesome platform) we always begin discussions by asking our contacts:
- How do you manage your business?
- What would you like to achieve with it?
- What are you biggest pains?
- Who are the users? What is the 1st thing they will do on Governance.com?
Based on their feedback, second step is to show the features and functionalities of our platform adapted to their needs.
During the advanced negotiations phase, we aim to underline our concrete support and value:
- Define together the Return on Investment of the project: our aim is to achieve 600% ROI within 3 years
- Focus on Simplicity of our platform: our motto is that a system is useful and will be used massively if it is simple to use
- Propose Agile and timely Implementation: tech means a quick, easy and efficient deployment
- Close follow-up of their activity: our Business Support experts are easily accessible during the entire process and afterwards to assist our clients in case of need
This approach is the key for the strong and long-term relationships.
It is also vital to integrate the decision-making and procurement variables very early in the process. Regtech is a new concept and Senior Management and Decision-Makers are sometimes informed of the procurement process once they have decided to use our platform. A pro-active and continuous support is the key to be able to work with them quicker and help them throughout the process.
This, I believe, is the reason of our success and our shortened relationships activation compared to our industry standards. We are all so proud to be part of this exciting adventure, which allowed us to grow from 2 to 17 FTE with offices in Luxembourg and the Netherlands
We have many exciting challenges for the upcoming year:
- Continue our international expansion by partnering with high-quality organizations and direct presence via local offices. We plan to be present in the UK during 2018 and extend to US and Asia during 2019 to get closer to our clients worldwide.
- Ensure continuous enhancement of our functionalities by listening to our clients
- Implement Machine Learning and AI functionalities we are working on our platform
Financial Regulation and Compliance costs around 780 BN $/year: 1% of Worldwide GDP! This is why it is so exciting for me to work within tech and being able to participate to a sustainable economy by providing a cost-efficient, safer and user-friendly solution!
About the Author
Olus Kayacan, CCO of Governance.com, has over 20 years of experience in Financial Markets including prime brokerage and asset management with a substantial network of Institutional Investors, Retail and Private Banks, Brokers, Asset managers, Family Offices and Corporates. His career has allowed him to meet extremely exciting, interesting and professional individuals every single day. He has successfully participated to the launch & development of several businesses and overachieved commercial targets on each of them.
