Why don't Agile transformations deliver the speed banks expect?

Because speed is difficult to sustain at scale, while collaboration builds early and holds. Global research from Efma and ADAPTOVATE found only 48% of financial institutions that set out to increase speed achieved it, compared to 75% for organizations pursuing increased collaboration. Collaboration tends to be the first visible payoff once cross-functional teams start working independently.

Why does business agility matter for banks and insurers right now?

Financial institutions face growing pressure to respond faster to shifting customer behavior, especially post-COVID, and Agile ways of working are how leading institutions build that responsiveness. The research shows most institutions are now well past early experimentation, with two-thirds already scaling Agile broadly or operating at full Agile-at-scale maturity.

What's the difference between piloting Agile and scaling it across an organization?

Piloting Agile typically means running one or more standalone teams to test the model, while scaling means extending Agile ways of working across departments beyond the original pilot, with fewer frictions between Agile and non-Agile parts of the business. The research identifies five distinct stages between these two states, with cross-functional team composition increasing at each stage.

Global Business Agility Report

Originally published November 2021

Most banks and insurers now expect Agile transformation to deliver faster time to market — yet new global research finds that speed is the benefit organizations struggle most to realize. In Efma and ADAPTOVATE's Global Business Agility Report, based on a survey of more than 50 digital and transformation leaders at financial institutions worldwide, plus in-depth interviews with senior transformation executives across banking and insurance, only 48% of organizations that set out to increase speed report having achieved it. Increased collaboration, by contrast, is realized by 75% of the institutions that pursue it — making it the most consistently delivered benefit of Business Agility, even though it's rarely the reason organizations start the journey.

As financial institutions face mounting pressure to respond faster to shifting customer behavior post-COVID, understanding which benefits Agile transformation actually delivers — and in what order — has become a critical planning question for transformation leaders. The report examines how Agile maturity progresses across financial institutions globally, the barriers that stall transformation, and what separates organizations that sustain Business Agility from those that stall.

Download the full report to see where your organization's Agile maturity stands and what the data says about the benefits you can expect at each stage.

Global Business Agility Report