Jack Henry Success Story

Moving from Data to Insights to Action at Jack Henry

Nicole Harper

Director of Corporate Strategy

Key Results:

  • Saved 2,000 hours of analyst time or $100K in resources
  • Developed strategic agility to respond quickly to market shifts

CB Insights Products Mentioned:

Back in 1976, back when payments only happened at a cash register and everyone carried a checkbook, our founders started Jack Henry out of a rented garage to provide better financial technology. Flash forward to today and we support more than 8,500 U.S. community and regional banks as well as credit unions with human-centered, tech-forward and insights-driven solutions.

We serve banks and credit unions by providing well-rounded technology solutions and services that serve their critical needs and support their growth. Our solutions span across various capabilities including risk, fraud, cybersecurity, lending, payments and digital banking. Part of our role as technology providers and trusted advisors is to constantly develop thought leadership to identify new opportunities for our clients, Jack Henry, and the markets we serve. My team is responsible for offering research and new perspectives, which covers digital transformation, credit unions, fintechs, AI, payments, business analytics, core banking, lending and wealth tech.

Because the financial services industry continues to evolve quickly, we needed to go beyond spreadsheets and content curation to unify strategy across our enterprise. This solution would help us quickly react and get ahead of any market shifts.

CB Insights was the ideal fit for our current needs and future vision, bringing together the most comprehensive research on the fintech market, powerful collaboration and data tools my team needed to streamline our process.

Mosaic scores strongly increase our ability to focus on companies with a higher likelihood of success.

Developing Strategic Agility

Strategic agility matters more than ever. With how quickly things are evolving in our space, we need to have a perspective on the market in real time. Prior to using CB Insights, we did this by vetting the fintech landscape using a standardized methodology, similar to CB Insights’ Mosaic Score, to rate and score fintech companies in different solution categories.

While that process worked for our leadership team, we realized that because this information was locked in spreadsheets, it didn’t work for us. It took an average of eight to sixteen hours for us to complete one company profile, and even then, the information became outdated quickly. Our focus should be a balance of content curation and strategic analysis, but the problem was the curation was consuming most of our time.

Now, my team uses CB Insights as a critical piece of our strategy. We’re able to easily segment the fintech market with a taxonomy and tagging strategy with CB Insights’ Collections feature, a real-time spreadsheet that we’ve customized to our business needs.

And once we’re ready to share our findings, we use the automated presentation feature, Stories, to prepare custom presentations on different fintech markets and companies in a few clicks. It’s transformed my team’s work, helping balance content curation with rapid and relevant strategic recommendations for our company.

Since using CB Insights, we’re more efficient. We’ve saved more than 2,000 hours of analyst time or $100,000 in value over the last year, freeing up our analysts and resources to focus on strategy.

Once we’re ready to start executing on that strategy, we use CB Insights for deal stage tracking. We’ve customized the platform to build a funnel to track activity from research through exit (e.g., disqualification, partnership or acquisition). We invite our team and key executives to view or edit this dashboard, so they know which fintech companies are being evaluated and the engagement stage we’re in.

Moving Faster With Research

Business leaders today are busy, and CB Insights knows that. You’ll never get a complicated, jargon-filled report that tells you nothing; you’ll get the insights you need to move forward from every piece of research you read.

Strategists in our space today can’t afford to have anything else. When I think about our market, I have a sense of cautious optimism and urgency about how traditional banking will evolve. It’s never going to slow down. If anything, our market is going to move even faster as we speed toward the future of banking. It’s exciting, and I have the peace of mind that CB Insights’ research will not only help my team get ahead of that future, but also help us “read the tea leaves” to figure out where we need to go next.

Strategy teams need more than just data. CB Insights makes data actionable so you know what to do next.

When I see CB Insights has published a State of Fintech report, I know that the research is data-driven, conversational and condensed enough for me to share with my team and stay on top of top fintech trends. I read every State of Fintech report and look forward to the annual AI 100 and Fintech 250 reports.

Making an Impact across the Organization

Using CB Insights has transformed our team. In a short period of time, we’ve been able to expand our capacity to analyze the fintech landscape, as well as spot key players and trends. We’re now providing competitive intelligence for direct and indirect players at a level unlike ever before — without having to manually update spreadsheets.

Because we’re now able to deliver timely and actionable insights, we’re better able to support our C-level executives, and most notably our Chief Strategy Officer, as well as brand and line of business leaders.

With CB Insights, we have developed the strategic agility that we need to respond to market shifts, amplifying the strategic value and impact of our team.

Nicole Harper

Director of Corporate Strategy

Before joining Jack Henry in 2017, Nicole held senior-executive leadership positions in marketing, business development, digital, and retail delivery for large credit unions and has provided consulting services for leading financial services providers. Today, she brings more than 15 years of industry experience, serving as a senior analyst who leads the company’s strategy team. In her role, she’s responsible for covering digital banking, the credit union industry, as well as the overall fintech landscape.

Her unique blend of experience as a practitioner and analyst of a leading technology solution provider allows her to contribute thought leadership through multiple lenses of the financial services ecosystem. She has a passion for empowering mission-driven organizations to activate data-informed and insights-driven strategies, while leveraging technology to improve the human experience in the digital age. She is curious about emerging trends and disruptive technology (and their implications to people and businesses) and enjoys helping brands differentiate themselves in a crowded market.

She is active in the fintech community and serves on the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) Associate Business Member Advisory Committee. Nicole holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. She also has an MIT Sloan Executive Certificate in Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy and completed the post graduate program in Artificial Intelligence for Leaders from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.

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