Forget offshore outsourcing. The best way for bank tech companies to improve earnings is to dump their marketing departments

By Art Gillis

I am currently in the process of interviewing bankers about their experiences with their tech vendors. The reason is simple. Today, smart bankers buy their technology and, therefore, vendors are a critical piece of their performance equation. So as the vendors go, so goes the performance of technology in the banks. I'm delighted to report that customers are singing the virtues of their vendors these days. And they're doing it far better than the marketing departments of their vendors, who are still using buzz words from the eighties and ads that look like cigarette ads from the fifties. Example: "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette." Fast forward 50 years and you've got, "The perfect storm is forming." One's as bad as the other.

But listen to their customers talk, and you want to run out and buy whatever the vendor has. So here's a cost-saving plan. Stop the stupid marketing, but use the savings to pay a nominal fee to your customers to tell it like it is. Prospects will love it, your CFO will welcome it, and your marketing department might just wake up to the fact that we now live in a world where honestagoodness stories carry more meaning than slogans, buzz words and hype.