Digitization in the banking sector

Digitization (action by which analogue processes, procedures, and objects are converted to digital format) can lead to the internal transformation of companies’ business models, strategies, processes, and procedures, which we generally call digital transformation.

This digital transformation, or the ability to carry it out, could be seen as a competitive advantage. If we take the banking sector as an example and, within it, we differentiate purely digital players and compare them to traditional players, we could conclude that the competitive advantage is not just about digitization and digital transformation of the former, but a much broader positioning that encompasses the company’s attitude towards innovation – called innovation orientation –, of which one of its results would be, for example, digitization and subsequent digital transformation.

This article aims to identify the key characteristics of purely digital players when compared to their traditional competitors in relation to innovation orientation and what differential characteristics have helped them achieve that level of digitization and digital transformation – understood as a result of such innovation orientation – successfully.