Mick Smothers at Capco summarizes the typical forces that act against standards adoption in the financial sector. He notes the arguments for standards outweigh those against – in fact, “it is self-evident that data standards are crucial to financial organizations – from insurance firms to mortgage companies. Firms resist adopting standards due to the costs and time involved in enterprise-wide implementation.”
The problem here is perceptions. The “costs and time” objection arises from short term thinking and a tendency to confuse investment with cost.
The objection about alignment with business cycles is the good old “yes, but not now” argument. This is a powerful tool of obstruction, because it's very hard for anyone to determine with accuracy exactly which business cycles are relevant, where we are in those cycles, and what we're doing to manage them. The phrase “business cycles” is being used a little like “will of the gods”.
Leaders have to take a lead. But we expect them to base their decisions on analysis, not voodoo.You've got to fight inertia, because inertia is generated by people. It's a product of fearful thinking and avoidance of evidence
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