FinTech, MedTech, EduTech and FashTech are current buzzwords and just a few examples of the current hype to merge a specific industry with the word technology. FinTech represents the combination of the words Financial (Industry) and Technology, MedTech stands for the combination of the words Medical and Technology, EduTech stands for the combination of the words Education and Technology, and FashTech stands for the combination of the words Fashion and Technology. Where does this urge to merge these terms come from?

1. Martijn Zoet & Eline de Haan
1
‘X-TECH’ THE NEW HYPE FROM THE 60’S
FinTech, MedTech, EduTech and FashTech are current buzzwords and just a
few examples of the current hype to merge a specific industry with the word
technology. FinTech represents the combination of the words Financial
(Industry) and Technology, MedTech stands for the combination of the words
Medical and Technology, EduTech stands for the combination of the words
Education and Technology, and FashTech stands for the combination of the
words Fashion and Technology. Where does this urge to merge these terms
come from?
1.1 ‘X’-Tech
As previously mentioned, “FinTech”, “MedTech”, “EduTech” and “FashTech” are
only four examples of industry names which are aggregated with the word
technology. Other possible candidates are: “OilTech”, “AirTech” or “CanTech”.
However, what do these abbreviations mean? The answer to this question is
not straightforward, multiple opinions and definitions exist. In general, three
different viewpoints about the meaning behind these abbreviations exist. In the
remainder of this article, the financial industry is used as example but the same
three viewpoints can be recognized for the medical, educational, and fashion
industry.
From the first viewpoint FinTech is defined as “innovation in financial
services.” The term technology is not included in this definition and is seen as
an implicit driver for the mentioned innovation. The second viewpoint does not
explicitly focus on innovation but highlights the use of technology. This
viewpoint considers FinTech as “an organization that uses software to provide
financial services.” The last viewpoint is very similar to the second viewpoint
but attempts to provide a more detailed definition of FinTech, an example of a
definition from this point of view is (FundThrough 2015): “FinTech is
technology that serves the clients of financial institutions, covering not
only the back and middle offices, but also the front office that has been human-
driven for so long.”
When the definitions of the three viewpoints are being compared, then
software / technology emerges as keyword twice and innovation once.
How are the terms technology (software) and innovation related to each other?

2. ‘X-Tech’ the new hype from the 60’s
2
New technology (software) is considered as one of the six possible innovation
types. The other five innovation types are: 1) a new service concept, 2) a new
kind of customer interaction, 3) a new business partner, 4) a new business
model, and 5) a process, organization or culture change (Den Hertog, 2010).
Each of the previous six innovation types can lead to improved financial services.
However, currently the industry is especially focused on one of the six
innovation types namely technology.
Altogether, FinTech can be defined as innovation which is made possible by
information technology to improve current existing services or to provide
new services. However, is the innovation of services by means of information
technology new? Maybe, somewhere back in 1960s. So, why does ‘X’-Tech
(where the X can be replaced by any industry) receives this much attention?
More important, is this attention rightfully deserved for a phenomenon as old as
the 1960s.
1.2 ‘Traditional’ organizations and ‘X’-Tech
On July 28 of this year, Bloomberg published a news item and associated article
about Goldman Sachs. The header of the article stated (Brooker, 2015):
“Goldman in Ventureland: The inside story of how—and why—Goldman Sachs
became a tech-investing powerhouse.” As the title of the article already
indicates, it discusses why Goldman Sachs has heavily invested in technology
companies.
Firstly, some numbers will be provided about the investments Goldman Sachs
has conducted during the past seven years. Goldman Sachs has participated in
132 technology-oriented fundraising rounds since 2009. During the past 2,5
years, 77 investment deals are made of which 33 investment deals have taken
place in the past year and 22 investment deals within the first half of this year
(Brooker, 2015). So, these numbers indicate an increase in investments.
Examples of organizations in which Goldman Sachs invested are: Uber,
Pinterest and Dropbox. The first reason for these investments, and from the
point of view of a bank also the most obvious reason, is: the economic return
on investment. The article also describes a second, and perhaps a more
important, reason why Goldman Sachs made these investments: the
organization mainly wants to learn!

3. Martijn Zoet & Eline de Haan
3
The fact that Goldman Sachs acknowledges that they need to keep track of the
latest technology corresponds to the results of the annual survey of Fortune,
used for determining the Fortune 500. In this survey, organizations are asked
what they conceive as the greatest challenge for the coming years. The number
one answer was: the rapidly changing technology and associated threats and
opportunities. The second answer was: cybersecurity (also an answer related to
technology). So to keep up with the technological changes, Goldman Sachs
invests in technology companies. Not just for the return on investment but to
learn how these organizations apply technology. The ultimate goal of these
current investments for Goldman Sachs is to apply the technology herself and
become better in this type of innovations. In order to optimize this learning
process, Goldman Sachs is transforming both on an organizational and a
cultural level.
This organizational transformation has led to an important fact: the largest
division of Goldman Sachs at this moment is the technology division. This
division comprises almost 33% (more than 9000 employees) of the total
workforce. As a result, the bank currently employs more technical(-oriented)
staff than bankers and traders (Brooker, 2015). Summarized, it can be
concluded that one of the largest investment banks of the world, Goldman
Sachs, conducts the purest form of FinTech herself.
If one of the largest investment banks is one of the biggest players in FinTech,
then it can be stated that FinTech is absolutely nothing new. This statement
would be correct if the story of Goldman Sachs was true for the entire financial
sector. However, this is not the case. The story of Goldman Sachs is one of the
few stories from the ‘traditional’ financial world. This is also one of the reasons
why FinTech receives so much attention. Currently, not the ‘traditional’
cumbersome financial organizations innovate based on technology but
especially the small startups are the ones that lead the innovation.
However, we should not speak too negatively about the existing banks and
financial service providers. Like Chris Skinner expressed well in his article: “does
anyone really think banks aren’t aware of fintech.” Of course banks are not
‘completely stupid’, they also see the world change. However, many
organizations experience difficulties with keeping up to date with the latest
technology and its associated opportunities and threats.

4. ‘X-Tech’ the new hype from the 60’s
4
Why do startups seem to function better in the current FinTech environment
than the traditional organizations? An unambiguous answer to this question
does not (yet) exist. However, scientists and the industry agree on one point: a
lot of variables may play a role in answering this question. The remainder of
this article examines one variable: the composition of knowledge which a
person, team, and/or organization possesses.
1.3 The ‘X’-Tech Superman
At a high level, three types of knowledge can be distinguished: product
knowledge (subject-matter expertise), domain knowledge, and technical
knowledge (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Overview of Knowledge types
Product knowledge corresponds to knowledge about a specific product or
service in a specific industry for example: investments, personal finance or
banking infrastructures in the financial industry. Domain knowledge
corresponds to knowledge about a specific domain or knowledge about specific
methods and techniques of a specific domain. For example knowledge about
the domain Business Process Management (BPM) and/or the method Six Sigma.
Technical knowledge corresponds to knowledge about the use and
application of information technology (hardware and software).

5. Martijn Zoet & Eline de Haan
5
In the ideal situation, one person would be an expert with regard to one or
more products, domains and/or technologies. These persons are also referred
to as ‘X’-tech supermen or superwomen. Taking FinTech into account, what are
the characteristics of a ‘Fin’-Tech superman at this moment? Firstly, the ‘Fin’-
Tech superman possesses broad and profound product knowledge about the
financial sector and the underlying products and services like investments,
personal finances, etc. Moreover, the ‘Fin’-Tech superman possesses thorough
domain knowledge about Business Process Management, Business Rules
Management, lean six sigma, machine learning, predictive analytics, cognitive
techniques and preferably a dozen additional domains, techniques and/or
methods. Furthermore, the ‘Fin’-Tech superman assembles its own in-memory
servers. He installs and configures Spark, Hadoop, MongoDB, Mesos, Pentaho,
OpenDaylight and OpenDataplane entirely by himself. Additionally, it would be
very helpful if the ‘Fin’-Tech superman has 40 years of experience. Two words
that summarize the above described profile are: dream on!
Despite the fact that we do not live in a dream world and no ‘X’-Tech supermen
exist, there are people who partly comply with an X-tech profile. This profile
implies that a person has very solid product knowledge (subject-matter
expertise) and very sound technical knowledge. In other words, these persons
know enough about technology to conduct a thorough conversation with the
ICT staff (programmers, engineers) and on the other hand they also have
sufficient subject-matter expertise about the business in which they operate.
Several venture capitalists and angel investors impose the condition, before
they invest, that at least one of the founders fits this latter described profile or
in some cases that at least the founders together can cover the profile.
Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist, describes in his article “the new tech CEO
archetype” that: the combination of product knowledge and technical
knowledge is the new profile for a CEO of a ‘technical-oriented’ organization. He
provides the following examples of CEOs: Marissa Mayer (Yahoo), Satya Nadella
(Microsoft), and Sundar Pichai (Google). With regard to Goldman Sachs, Martin
Chavez is the current CIO and acts as a bridge between the Tech-Scene and
the bank. Chaves has founded and sold his own Silicon Valley startup and
receives the respect of the Tech-Scene and speaks their language (Brooker,
2015).
FinTech, MedTech, EduTech, FashTech are buzzwords but innovation by means
of technology will persist and will (at an accelerated pace) continue. Not only

6. ‘X-Tech’ the new hype from the 60’s
startups will innovate but also the ‘traditional
This means that is becomes more and more
possess product, domain, and technical knowledge to
the velocity of innovation. In general, this will be easier for startups than for
‘traditional’ companies.
Authors
Martijn Zoet
References
Brooker, K. (2015). Goldman in Ventureland: The inside story of how
- Goldman Sachs became a tech-
07-2015, 2015
Den Hertog, P. (2010). Managing service innovation: firm
capabilities and policy options. http://dare.uva.nl/document/184618.
Skinner, C. (2015). Does anyone really think banks aren't aware of the Fintech
challenge? Retrieved 2015-08-12, 2015
Wilson, F. (2015). The New Tech CEO Archetype
6
traditional’ companies are forced to innovate.
and more important to form teams which
, and technical knowledge to be able to keep up with
In general, this will be easier for startups than for
Eline de Haan
K. (2015). Goldman in Ventureland: The inside story of how - and why
-investing powerhouse. Retrieved 30-
Managing service innovation: firm-level dynamic
http://dare.uva.nl/document/184618.
Skinner, C. (2015). Does anyone really think banks aren't aware of the Fintech
12, 2015
Wilson, F. (2015). The New Tech CEO Archetype. Retrieved 2015-08-06, 2015