Paper Title:
The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Banking for Leveraging Customer Experience
Authors: (Bhattacharya & Sinha, 2022)
Year : 2022
Journal : Australian Accounting Business & Finance Journal
Summary of the Content of the Paper:
The paper is documenting a research carried out on the readiness and ability of Banks to leverage Artificial Intelligence to deliver a superior customer experience.
The research was targeted at Banks in the large cities of India whose customers have a fast moving life, and are in sustained need for frictionless and flawless banking services.
A literature review was conducted on both international and Indian Banks adoption and readiness to adopt AI to enhance customer experience and operational efficiency. Interviews were used as a research method for collecting middle and back office data from senior business and IT officials from the banks. A survey was conducted on the use of Chatbots on online banking platforms to understand the customers’ experience with AI enabled Banking.
For quantitative analysis the Relative Importance Index technique was deployed to rank the use cases most preferred by the customers.
The paper ends by summarising the most prevalent use cases for AI which Indian Banks could prioritise for adoption and implementation to better both customer experience and internal business efficiencies. It also proffers best practices for IT Architecture and leading practices for Digital Banking.
Quality of Research:
The researcher has adopted a usually recommended technique of using a primary research question with a supporting secondary question. The primary question is focused on the AI technologies that can be adopted in the various business functions whilst the secondary question is aimed at surfacing the challenges that have been faced and are likely to be faced in implementing those technologies. The secondary question also ensures that the researcher will also guide banks on how to successfully implement the AI technologies. This approach ensures some focus on the main research objective simultaneously whilst managing the other goal of how value can be derived, all this without adding too much complexity to the study and confusion to the targeted study audience. The researcher has also introduced both questions in their problem statement which is at the beginning of the paper to ensure the research objective is clear from the onset (Faarugia , et al., 2010)
The population of interest was also established in the early sections of the research so that any ethical issues would be addressed early in the research. (Faarugia , et al., 2010).
Whilst assessing a research project for originality is not straightforward owing to the several possible definitions available this research is largely original in that it acknowledges work that has been done by others on the same topic and deploys several techniques in a manner that does not show direct plagiarism of other researchers’ works. (Alajami, 2020)
The authors have a sound background research as evidenced by a succinct and well-synthesised literature review which has helped to establish if there is a knowledge gap between what has been studied before and now hence improving the chances of the contemplated research bringing out some new knowledge or at the minimum confirming what has already been established in prior research (Faarugia , et al., 2010)
Whilst ethical considerations of this research were not explicitly articulated this blogger has not picked up any ethical problems as all work by other authors was appropriately acknowledged through referencing. The work of other authors seems to have been correctly presented and interpreted as confirmed by those that this writer looked up which include the statistics from a McKinsey survey reported by Biswas, et al.( 2020). The only rather unethical aspect in this was the acknowledgement of only two of the authors yet the referenced article was written five authors.
From another ethical dimension the population of interest which includes customers and the banks internal staff are not likely to be harmed by this research as it remained anonymous and meant to benefit them and not the researcher (Brooke, 2009)
The research methodology:
The research and data collection, and analysis, methodologies deployed and the justification of the choice were introduced in the abstract and clearly explained in the methodology section. (Stensfors, et al., 2020)
The authors of this paper have a good understanding of the need to employ the appropriate data collection methodology for a specific audience and the type and detail of information expected as they have used interviews for a smaller audience which required more intricate detail. Surveys were deployed for a larger research sample where interviews would take longer, (Paradis, et al., 2016)
As suggested by Pluye, et al (2018) the use of mixed methods research strategy to merge results of qualitative and quantitative data collection methods is applauded as it ensures the researcher get the appropriate results for each case which is likely to improve the overall answer to the research question or achievement of the research objective.
Quality of Presentation
The paper has been largely well-presented and structured with clearly labelled sections. The paper is broken down into several sections as expected in an academic research paper starting with the abstract, that succinctly states the research question as well as summarise the entire study, followed by an introduction which further elucidates the aspects mentioned in the abstract whilst leaving the reader thirsty to read further into the paper. (Stensfors, et al., 2020)
The research process was clearly laid out in a research flow chart summarising well the entire research process from problem definition to results and conclusion.
Diagrams, i.e. Tables, Process Flows, Images and graphs have been adopted to present collected data, visualise flow of information and decision points, emphasize certain key concepts and present results of data analysed respectively. These have helped keep me, as a reader, engaged as well as conceptualise with ease the arguments being advanced. The use of modern visuals such as word cloud shows the researchers presentation prowess. (Schulze, et al., 2021)
The paper however does not have a table of Contents which is supposed to summarise the structure of the paper at a glance. This then seems to be a trend with
most published research papers as evidenced by other papers read including those
by Thowfeek, et al., (2020) and Kshetri( 2021) both from different publications.
Other considerations
The paper takes a systems thinking approach by looking at Adoption of AI in banking withing the context of people, processes and other capabilities and technologies that may need to be employed, adopted deployed in conjunction with AI to ensure it’s adoption is adequately packaged. AI is being researched within the context Digital Banking which brings out the fact that it is part of a wider Digital Technologies architecture. The role of Data and Analytics has been surfaced as critical to the successful adoption of AI. Enterprise Architecture is also proposed as a capability or practice that can help identify the Technology, Strategy and Process landscape within which it exists.
References
Alajami, A., 2020. Beyond originality in scientific research: Considering relations among originality, novelty, and ecological thinking. Thinking Skills and Creativity, December.Volume 38
Bhattacharya, C. & Sinha, M., 2022. The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Banking for Leveraging Customer Experience. Australasian Accounting Business & Finance Journal, 16(5), pp. 89-105
Biswas, S. et al., 2020. AI-Bank of the future: Can banks meet the AI Challenge?. [Online]
Brooke, C., 2009. Critical Management Perspectives on Information Systems. Oxford: Elsevier.
Faarugia , P., Petrisor, B. A., Farrokhyar, F. & Bhandari, M., 2010. Practical tips for surgical research : Research Questions, hypothesis and objectives. Canadian Journal of surgery, August, 53(4), pp. 278-281.
Pluye, P. et al., 2018. A World of Possibilities in Mixed Methods: Review of the Combinations of Strategies Used to Integrate the Phases, Results, and Qualitative and Quantitative Data. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MULTIPLE RESEARCH APPROACHES, 10(1), pp. 1-16.
Schulze, P., Barton, L. & College, . A., 2021. How to give a Good Presentation. [Online] Available at: https://www.cur.org/assets/1/7/How_to_Give_a_Good_Presentation__CUR.pdf [Accessed April 2023].
Stensfors, T., Kajamaa, A. & Bennett, D., 2020. How to ...assess the quality of qualitative research. The Clinical Teacher, December , 17(6), pp. 596-599.
Thowfeek, M. H., Nawaz, S. S. & Sanjeetha, M. B. F., 2020. Drivers of Artificial Intelligence in Banking Service Sectors. Solid State Technology, December, 63(5), pp. 6400-6411.
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