Türkiye İş Bankası General Manager Adnan Bali said that the bank would soon open innovation centers in China and London. He said that such centers are not only for financial purposes but they also aim to run many businesses together, whether they are related to each other or not.
Speaking at the Uludağ Economics Summit's session "Opportunities in the Age of Digitalization," which was moderated by İhsan Elgin, the founder of Core Strategy, Bali defined digitalization as "disintermediation."
Stressing that digitalization will interest all sectors, Bali noted that one should be open to all ideas.
He continued, "You should not have a mind that rejects something from the beginning. Accept something from the beginning and do not try to prove the truth of it. Prove that it is wrong and then keep working on the rest. This will bring a much broader perspective. We are trying to do this right now. For this, business models must be constantly questioned."
Underlining that they should now spend much of their time on the opportunities created by current businesses or the threats they might be exposed to, Bali said, "We have a digitalization management committee. We have been intensely concentrated on this for a couple of years and they have tangible results. There are concrete initiatives we have made to this end. For instance, we have an innovation center in Silicon Valley which we opened two to three years ago."
Highlighting that the innovation center in Silicon Valley has started to export many applications that use artificial intelligence in a wide range of areas from robotic industry to software, Bali stated that such organizations are needed even just to breathe such innovative climate.
