Kristin Moyer

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Kristin R. Moyer
Research Director
11 years at Gartner
18 years IT industry

Kristin Moyer is a research director in Industry Advisory Services/Banking and Investment Services. She has more than 17 years of experience across the global high-technology industry in a variety of roles. Ms. Moyer's research coverage includes card… Read Full Bio

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Do You have Someone Standing Watch?

by Kristin Moyer  |  October 9, 2008  |  Comments Off

Rick DeLotto here.  Banks need someone senior standing watch 24×7.  Events are moving too fast and the stakes are too high for bank leaders to be surprised by events – or worse – by a TV crew outside of their door before breakfast.  It is time to set a watch, and have qualified staff monitoring events on a 24×7 basis so that the right managers can get early warning with enough lead time to make a difference.  Real-time notification of breaking news can turn a catastrophe into an opportunity.

First – I do not know of any magic bullet technology here.  Most banks should be aware by now of the critical need for reputation management, and be making some effort to scan both old and new media and the blogosphere for references to their company and competitors either through internal staff or companies such as BuzzMetrics, Biz360 and Factiva.  However, this could still result in critical time lags between event, reportage, and someone able to respond getting around to logging in and checking email.

Banks need personnel “on duty” to reliably assess the implications of incoming information.  Banks need dedicated staff to “stay up late or wake real early” and keep an eye the 24×7 news and business media, either directly or through a platform such as dnaMonitor.  Those on duty need to contact senior management if something important hits the wire.

Eventually this may evolve into a 24×7 function of the PR, IR or risk management office.  However, until senior staff is used to the idea of real-time warning, and is capable of exploiting it, the credibility of the voice on the other end of that 0200 wake-up call is of high importance. 

Start with at least a 90-day test.  Rotate the watch through the senior staff (who are probably losing sleep over events any way) on a regular basis, both to spread the work-load (and pain) and give everyone experience in the real-time assessment of incoming information.  It may be that you decide that there is nothing that can’t wait until morning, but a 90 days test under today’s circumstances should provide enough early warning of “unpredicted change” for any bank to assess its usefulness.

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