By Razzaq Onotu, CBAP® | Strategic Product Leader in Fintech, Healthcare & Digital Innovation
In recent times, you would find that the traditional sectors, including healthcare, banking, and logistics, that were once insulated by legacy systems and institutional inertia, are now faced with a stark reality, which is that they must either adapt or become obsolete. The pressure to go digital is no longer a result of competition but one born of necessity if they must continue to exist. Ranging from the rural clinics in Nigeria to the SMEs in London, there is a surge for seamless, accessible, and intelligent services which has reshaped expectations.
My experience in leading digital transformation initiatives in fintech and healthcare has made me witness how industries that were once resistant to change are now embracing innovation. Note that they are not doing this as a luxury but as a lifeline. However, their path forward is often fraught with complexity. Their successes hinge on how they can balance technological ambition with cultural readiness, regulatory compliance, and ethical practices.
Let’s take a look at how the financial services brick-and-mortar banks dominated a decade ago by relying on manual processes and hierarchical decision-making. Today, popular fintechs such as QuickBucks (the digital lending platform I scaled at Access Bank) have shown how AI and data analytics can make credit accessible to users. We leveraged machine learning to earn SME creditworthiness through alternative data, including social media traction and supply chain reliability. We also reduced loan approval times from days to minutes while slashing default rates by 15%. Note that this transformation wasn’t just about algorithms, we also had to dismantle the silos between risk, compliance, and engineering teams. These activities among our team created a culture where data literacy became as important as financial skills.
The healthcare sector also tells a similar story. I recall that when we wanted to integrate a patient engagement portal at Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, it was beyond digitizing records because we were required to reimagine care delivery in a system that was challenged by legacy infrastructure and workforce shortages. When we mapped out the patient journeys, we noticed that 30% of appointment no-shows were due to communication gaps. The solution we offered was an AI-driven SMS bot that sent multilingual reminders and rescheduling options which helped in cutting missed appointments by 22%. However, the greater challenge wasn’t technical, it was human. This is because the clinicians were accustomed to paper-based workflows and often needed reassurance that the digital tools would only improve and not hinder patient relationships. These iterative co-design sessions helped us to transform skeptics into advocates while proving that technology is a success only when it empowers its users.
These examples only reveal a common thread: the future of digital transformation lies in contextual innovation. Emerging technologies such as AI, blockchain, or IoT are not solutions but enablers. They are significant only when they are aligned with industry-specific challenges. For instance, blockchain’s potential for supply chain transparency is undeniable, but it is almost impossible in Nigerian agriculture as it requires grounding in local realities. Farmers are in need of real-time pricing data and not just immutable ledgers. This was why we integrated SMS-based blockchain updates with regional market trends and helped cooperatives negotiate fairer prices which boosted incomes by 35%. Similarly, IoT-enabled logistics at Sendbox caused a reduction in delivery failures by aligning real-time tracking.
Today, these challenges are still in existence as the legacy systems remain the Achilles’ heel of major traditional sectors. At Access Bank, it was no small feat to integrate QuickBooks with a 40-year-old core banking system, which took longer than building the platform itself. Despite the technical debt demanding that we trade-offs, APIs became the bridge that we leveraged on. We developed the platform with a modular architecture that ensured that new features could evolve independently without destabilizing legacy code. The regulatory hurdles increased these complexities, and we all know that GDPR compliance in healthcare or PCI-DSS in fintech isn’t optional; it’s foundational. However, viewing compliance as a checkbox exercise stifles innovation. At Anchor, we embedded regulatory experts into product teams which helped to turn compliance into a design constraint that sparked creativity, such as using biometric authentication to meet KYC mandates while improving our user experience.
Here’s the catch: there are opportunities to leverage as these traditional industries have in abundance untapped assets ranging from decades of institutional knowledge to deep customer relationships and regulatory skills. When these assets are paired with agile tech practices, disruption is less likely to take place. In the healthcare sector, you will find merging electronic health records with predictive analytics that can shift care from reactive to preventive. Imagine AI flagging diabetes risks during routine check-ups, which can enable early interventions; this is an initiative that we’re exploring with rural clinics in Nigeria. In the banking sector, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols could help by extending micro-insurance to farmers, with smart contracts automating payouts based on weather data.
Most traditional sectors often treat their customers as segments rather than individuals. The digital twins virtual models of physical assets or processes have offered a breakthrough in addressing this challenge. At Sendbox, creating digital twins of logistics networks enabled us to simulate disruptions such as fuel shortages and floods and also reroute shipments. For SMEs, this meant reliability; for Sendbox, it meant trust.
The future belongs to industries with the perspective of viewing digital transformation as a mindset rather than a destination. It’s about solidifying ecosystems where legacy frameworks and innovation can coexist, where data simply informs but does not dictate, and where technology serves humanity and not the other way round. I know the road ahead might seemingly be uneven, but for those who are willing to listen, adapt, and work together, it can lead to relevance in an increasingly digital world.
Razzaq Onotu is a strategic leader with a lots of experience driving digital transformation across fintech, healthcare, and logistics. His work has impacted 1M+ users, blending technical innovation with ethical, human-centric design.
