Jean-Pierre Schmit (JEMMIC): Digitization for business
Jemmic, a Luxembourg company which will soon be celebrating its 10th anniversary, helps banks and insurers stay competitive by offering agile, rapidly implemented digitization solutions at a low cost. An interview with Jemmic’s manager anding founder.
Can you describe Jemmic in a few words?
We digitize our clients’ businesses. I often hear people talk about digitizing documents but we extend digitization to the whole business, offering a client portal with different modules, but a single login. The strength of our system lies in our capacity to integrate a variety of apps, sometimes coded in different languages, which makes our clients’ digital transformation much more agile. Today, Banks today still working “in the old way”, with projects that take four years to complete, by which timebecome de facto they are obsolete. We help them reduce this lead time to six months, which is essential for keeping up with technological developments and customer expectations. Their customers demand rapid solutions but in exchange they are willing to use direct communication channels, which offer enormous operational gains for our customers!
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“Our strength lies in our capacity to integrate a variety of apps into a single client portal”
What are banks and insurance companies’ current needs?
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As a Luxembourg company, we are lucky to work with clients here in the Grand Duchy and also in Switzerland, where I worked for IBM. Under pressure from fintechs, banks now understand that the old saying “If you move, you take a risk” has changed to “If you don’t move, you take a risk”. This paradigm shift means they need have to leave their comfort zones and seek the support of trusted partners like Jemmic. To move quickly, our clients now want to be able to combine opportunistic acquisitions, develop proprietary apps, use ready-to-use cloud modules and manage their older systems.
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Why Luxembourg?
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When I worked in Switzerland, I was very struck by a conversation with a Canadian colleague who had to return to Winnipeg to take care of his senile mother. I decided to create my company in my own country, so that I could enjoy being near my parents before they get too old! This approach has also set the tone for the company's culture. Jemmic is a family of specialists, most of whom have started off in large IT companies and wanted to join a smaller, friendlier company, where integrity is not compromised by the demands of shareholders or absurd growth targets. Everyone finds it the perfect environment for developing their careers and meeting the demands of - often prestigious - clients. I’m one of those people who believes that it's not possible to motivate staff. The company must create the conditions to ensure that motivation comes from within! New technologies mean that we can serve clients anywhere in Europe, and we receive incomparable support from the government and from Luxinnovation. In my view, Luxembourg has everything needed to become a major digital player in Europe.