Recapping our latest Product Advisory Groups in Zurich & Guernsey

Over the last few weeks, TrustQuay has held its latest Product Advisory Groups in both Zurich and Guernsey. Here’s a recap and review from Junior Product Manager Suzanne Pritchard, following her first visits to these locations. 

The dust has settled on our latest Product Advisory Groups, and having never visited Zurich or Guernsey before, I jumped at the chance to take part, meet face-to-face with our customers, and subsequently blog about my experience. 
 
The objective of the Product Advisory Groups were to provide stakeholders and leaders from our customer base in both the Zurich and Guernsey trust and corporate services market with insights into our upcoming ideas and features, and listen to feedback to ensure we're investing in the right areas at the right time. 

The first session was around our TrustQuay vision and identifying the key business challenges faced by our NavOne, 5Series and TrustQuay Online customers today. Regulatory burden was identified as a top challenge in both sessions, and interestingly, this along with all of the top 4 challenges identified were identical to the Jersey November 2021 Product Advisory Group and also the findings from our 2021 Future Focus Report. Discussions therefore delved into the root cause of this burden, with the focus being on cumbersome manual processes, keeping up with the ever-changing regulatory demands, and the different processes requested by different regulators in different jurisdictions. This highlights that the industry is still dealing with getting the basics right across different locations, and that there still remains much to be done in partnership with local regulators such as the Guernsey Financial Commission to streamline and digitalise regulatory filings.  

Another key topic of discussion was our mission to help firms digitalise their client interactions through the TrustQuay Portal. A ‘Play Your Cards’ innovation game of current and roadmap features was a vibrant discovery activity which re-enforced that our Portal feature offering meets customer demand, with the top cards selected all available and live with customers today. A demonstration of the GBG Portal onboarding process then neatly tied into a poll and discussion on ecosystem partners, which TrustQuay see as a key differentiator for our customers in order to create competitive advantage and optimise their business operations and efficiencies.  

A highlight of both afternoons was the TrustQuay Online section where we spoke to the pizza-as-a service concept to continue our SaaS market education and then ran polls on the key drivers and barriers to moving to the cloud. TrustQuay itself has been on a journey to the cloud, and therefore it was great to hear how our customers see SaaS as the future and most importantly hear that although their current software may not be in the cloud, any new software they purchase now must be reviewed and considered with a SaaS first mindset. Microsoft interoperability was also a key discussion point, with customers calling it “incredible” and stating that it is “the only way to go”. Following some open Q&A, the afternoon was then concluded with a well-deserved networking session over drinks.  

Overall, it was a really insightful event, and I cannot wait for further Product Advisory Groups later this year, such as Singapore, which will be another personal first!