We’re an IT consultancy that helps businesses to find the simplest approaches to their IT requirements. Here’s the Strateral solution we found for a client that was handling their Know Your Customer (KYC) processes through a jumble of manual work.
The client’s challenge:
Inefficient KYC was stalling their growth
Our client was running KYC through a garage-full of in-house forms, spreadsheets, and SharePoint files. Even with a whole team on hand, the vast amount of manual tasks was preventing them from driving forwards.
And worse, bigger roadblocks were ahead – the company would soon be accepting payments, presenting regulatory challenges that they’d need to handle in a much simpler way.
Their fragmented process clearly wasn’t working – they needed a faster, simpler, and more scalable approach.
So we asked them:
“Is KYC truly something you should build and own – or is this an already solved problem with ready-made solutions that can be adapted quickly and cheaply?”
Patchwork solutions won’t help you scale
A Strateral solution
Instead of propping up the existing patchwork, we recommended redesigning and automating the process from the ground up. But what was the right way to go?
1. A rapid discovery stage
We shadowed the KYC team at work and cut straight to the key questions. No need for in-depth requirements gathering and scoping – simply:
- Were they screening individuals or companies?
- Were they monitoring payments?
- What tools were they using?
- What were the main pain points and bottlenecks?
The answers pointed us toward a key insight – instead of trying to reflect our client’s existing, inefficient process into a shiny new tool, we flipped the approach. What if we adopt a process based on the industry best practices and tweak it where needed, rather than trying to replicate our old, fragmented one?
2. Rethinking vendor selection
The KYC product market is a crowded one, so we’d need to identify a suitable solution.
The traditional Commercial Off The Shelf Software (COTS) process usually follows a linear, waterfall path:
It’s a thorough process – but painfully slow, with months of paperwork before any real progress happens, and there is no promise that you’ll be happy with the final result.
Our client couldn’t afford that. Competitors were moving fast, and a traditional RFP would leave them stuck in analysis-mode for months. Instead, we applied a non-traditional, agile approach to accelerate decision-making and generate evidence early:
- Define Core Needs
- Fast, collaborative discovery through focused workshops
- Agree on must-have requirements (business, compliance, integration)
- Limit outputs to a one-pager, not a 50-page RFP
- Research & Landscape Scan
- Rapidly map the vendor ecosystem using market scans, analyst reports, and peer benchmarks
- Identify 5–7 viable KYC vendors based on fit, maturity, and reputation
- Early Vendor Conversations
- Engage short-listed vendors quickly
- Request sandbox/demo access up front instead of waiting for proposals
- Prioritize vendors with working solutions, not just slideware
- Test Real-Life Workflows
- Run client data through real KYC scenarios in vendor sandboxes
- Involve end users early for feedback (operations, compliance officers)
- Evaluate usability, scalability, and compliance fit over sheer feature lists
- Shortlisting
- Compare evidence from testing: integration complexity, scalability, user feedback
- Conduct quick reference calls with existing customers
- Reach a decision in weeks, not months
- Begin Pilot
- Start with a pilot rather than a big-bang contract
- Validate performance with real users and data
- Scale once confidence is established
- Scale
This flexible process put evidence over promises. It allowed us to improvise and move at pace, rather than being constrained by the lengthy COTS model. With insights gained early, we held focused conversations with a select group of vendors whose KYC solutions looked most adaptable to our client’s needs.
Thanks to this approach, we also filtered out vendors who simply said “yes” to everything – whether through bespoke workarounds or overpromising features. Our client needed proof that the chosen solution would scale cleanly, not add complexity.
3. Choose a best-practice process to adopt
Vendor 1 looked good on paper
They had all the right buzzwords – AI, automation, scale – but digging deeper revealed that only parts of the process were automated. Much of the work still relied on offshore manual teams.
In practice, it meant our client would be paying twice: once for the service, and again to maintain an in-house KYC team.
Vendor 2 stood out immediately
They gave us instant access to a sandbox environment so we could test their processes ourselves.
They shared an extensive library of pre-built KYC workflows (tailored by company size) and demonstrated a deep understanding of real-world implementation.
We brought Vendor 2’s process library to our client’s KYC team and asked: “Do you see any major gaps? Or can we adopt one of these templates with only minor adjustments?”
After some initial hesitation, they agreed to give it a try.
4. Test the KYC process
To make sure the product would truly streamline processes for our client, we chose one of their most problematic KYC workflows for a proof of concept (PoC). Nothing simple –something challenging that often caused friction and delays.
With sandbox access from the vendor, we could configure, test, and simulate the workflow end-to-end ourselves using production-like data. The results were impressive. The solution was so user-friendly and so easy to customize that the KYC team could immediately see how seamless it would be.
Speak to people and test products out
A simple, hands-on outcome
Our agile approach outperformed the traditional RFP method, where decisions are made based on feature checklists and price tags (often ignoring usability, flexibility or user satisfaction).
1. The KYC process
was redesigned around scalable best practices.
2. We tested
the process in two weeks (instead of months of RFP).
3. The vendor
was selected with hands-on confidence, not promises.
4. The internal KYC
team validated the vendor’s processes.
5. We were able
to reduce manual workload by over 60% with room for even more in further iterations.
6. The client
was prepared to scale up without hiring more KYC staff.
Are your processes helping you move forward, or just keeping you busy?
Key takeaways
1. Stay flexible. Don’t cling to old, ineffective processes.
2. Don’t default to RFPs. Vendors often ‘yes’ their way through them.
3. Go hands-on early. Get sandbox access instead of relying on promises.
4. Adopt, don’t replicate. Use proven vendor workflows instead of reinventing them.