Where to start on the road to digital payments success?

Start small

Start with one or two areas, and work out from there. Don’t try to change everything all at once- this can be difficult. Better to make a small change successfully rather than to bite off too much and fail.

Start with what you already know

Make sure you’ve gone through the self assessment tool, and try to evaluate the areas that you are already most comfortable with. Change may require you to influence coworkers or stakeholders - if you can already demonstrate results in your area, you might have better results.

Validate your thinking

Validate your assessment results with stakeholders. You’ll probably need to bring in stakeholders from different areas to confirm or update your initial assessment and plan.

Make a rough plan, not a specification

Don’t get bogged down in trying to work everything out at the start. It can be tempting- but remember that this can be a form of procrastination. Your big document might look impressive. But like Mike Tyson said: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Try to rough out a road map, focussing on key milestones and results rather than the minutiae of how you’re going to get there. Put another way, none of your customers will care (or even know) if you’ve spent $10k or $10M on your payment technology. They just want to complete their transaction quickly, and not read about your organisation has just become the latest hack.

Engage with your stakeholders

Once you have a plan, make sure you are engaging with stakeholders in your organisation. Make sure you have their support to create a road map of initiatives that will help improve your payment maturity score.

It’s a journey

Constant improvement is the goal, rather than a particular score. For your particular industry or situation, it might not be achievable or viable to get a 100% maturity score. The effort to get there may outweigh the business value. Focus instead on constant improvements and getting better a digital payments in ways that will make a positive impact to your organisation and customers.