Over the last two years we have kept coming back to one diagram, the 11:FS Banking Battlefield. We use this to explain the changes we see in the financial services industry. In fact, one particular workshop we did in Australia last year had us talking through this diagram for the entire day! Seriously. It also featured in three bank board packs in the last 6 months which is also a pretty good indication we’re onto something.

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At 11:FS we like to describe the state of banking today as a battlefield where incumbent banks are being attacked from all sides by new challengers and non-FS digital players. This battlefield is under more pressure today than ever before and filled with micro battles, all of which are shaping the future of the industry we all work within. It could not be a more volatile and interesting time to be looking at banking.

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The context for this diagram is super important. When we stood back from the industry far enough to take it all in and try to make sense of it, we saw two main drivers in the market that are shaping all of the player’s futures.

1. Number of Customers - The number of customers you have (in turn this is about the level of success you have/the amount of revenue you’re making and so on and so forth) denotes your impact on the industry, but also your perspective on the industry and what needs to change.
2. Intelligent Digital Service (IDS) - The sophistication of the digital services that are being provided by those organisations in Financial Services. These could be internally or externally but we mainly focus this on service to customers. Note: this isn’t about how fancy your website is, but deeper digital services that might be operational in nature as well as your mobile app. But that deserves its own blog post in the future.

Once you have your head around the axes it’s about the players on the board. You have 4 main ones that we see today vying for customers’ attention:

1. Incumbent Banks

• What?: The big banks all have one thing in common and that is vast amounts of customers in the market, but also all the bad connotations of the word “legacy” when it comes to their level of sophistication of digital services.
• Key Challenges: Incumbent banks have the issue and burden of past successes. The largest customer base comes with a significant sense of importance as to how they conduct business, as well as all of the costs you would expect from a company of such a size. Both technological and regulatory. Add in the rising sense of customer expectation as to what services they offer and they are facing a war on many fronts.
• Who are they?: RBS, HSBC, Barclays etc – you know, the “big banks”.

2. Brand Challengers

• What?: These guys are the MNOs and surrounding industries that have taken advantage of their position and customer base to launch banks with a brand who are mostly recognised for something else.
• Key Challenges: The brand challengers in this space for the most part have all of the issues of their bigger brothers, but a fraction of the customers. Most have built their banks on the same structures and technologies that hold back the big banks.
• Who are they?: Metro Bank, First Direct, Tesco Bank.

3. Startups and Digital Challengers

• What?: These are the new kids on the block: brand new banking players with fully digital banking systems,intelligent services, and products to offer their customers.
• Key Challenges: Gaining customers. These are usually new, small startups that are just starting out with limited market spend and therefore reach and growth (at least at first).
• Who are they?: Monzo, Starling, Atom, Tandem, Revolut (in the UK).

4. Consumer Digital Giants

• What?: These are big tech giants who are not traditionally banking providers, but have a lot of customers, a lot of sophisticated technology and huge amounts of customer data (and money). This gives them the resources they need to start providing banking services with relative ease.
• Key Challenges: Trust. They hold a lot of customer’s data, but will customers trust them enough to make the switch to use them as a banking provider? Likewise these companies have hugely sophisticated tech systems, but do they want to make the switch to become a banking service and be regulated accordingly?
• Who are they?: Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, Ant Financial, Baidu, Tencent

As you can see, everyone is trying to get to the top right of this diagram. Everyone wants the most customers and the most sophisticated IDS.

Incumbent banks have the customers but they need the tech, new challengers have the tech but not the customers, and the big tech companies seemingly have everything they need to be a real threat, if and when they start offering banking services.

Getting Across the Page

At 11:FS we work with a number of people on this battlefield at different points but this is always the funnest part of any presentation. There is usually a pause at the end of this explanation. The question then comes....

“Okay okay… so how do we get across the page?”

So the advice we give is pretty to the point:

“You can’t, and should stop trying. It’s too hard. What you’re trying to do is take the legacy systems and drag them forward kicking and screaming, and it’s going to take too long and cost too much. There’s a reason why most big bank’s announcements surrounding innovation manifest themselves predominantly in terms of how much they’re spending, not what they’ve done or plan to do.”

The Red Queen's Race

Don't get me wrong here. Big banks have it tough. To make billions they have to spend billions. They have to constantly be ensuring regulatory compliance. Ensuring mandatory changes are made, the lights are kept on. Then and only then, after all those other things are taken care of, can they look to move the dial towards changing the organisation’s future.

A starving man doesn’t worry about what he is having for dinner in the future, he’s got to eat today! Likewise banks rightly have to be so preoccupied with eating today and ensuring the bank’s lights stay on, by which I mean looking after the here and now. That’s a lot of lights to keep on and a lot of mouths to feed.

This leads to the behaviour we see. Billions of pounds being provisioned for “Digital Transformation”, most of which end up with little being changed beyond incrementally moving something forwards. Its the Red Queen’s race I’ve written about in the past. Banks have to run as hard as they can just to stay in the same place.

What's the Plan for Banking?

So if you can’t get across the page, what should banks do instead? If you work in a bank strategy department I’m about to save you millions on consultancy fees for the McConsultancys of the world. This is a financial services incumbent bank’s strategy for the next 5 years, summarised into a 3 sentence joke, ready?

There’s a man driving through the countryside, trying to find a nearby town. He is desperately lost surrounded by fields and so when he sees a woman by the side of the road pushing a bike he pulls over and asks for directions. After a long pause and head scratching the woman says, “Well, If you want to get there I wouldn’t start from here.”

Okay, translation time. Banks cannot get to where they want to at the speed they want to, and with the quality of outcome if they start from where they currently are. It’s just not possible or at least not effective.

Sisyphean Task

I’ve said that’s the wrong strategy for years now and will only lead to billions being spent and disappointment by the CEOs and Boards of those banks who they serve. The change they create will take too long and ultimately not make a big enough change to make a marked difference, not when the world around them is moving faster.

If banks continue to continue to try to carry the boulder of legacy technology and culture up the mountain of the changing banking battlefield, they will be punished in Sisyphean style. The boulder will roll back down and they’ll be back to where they started and ultimately, beaten to the post by those who think about this problem in a different way.

Doing nothing is no longer an option. The big tech giants are also getting ever closer to announcing their invasion into the market; they have the tech, the customers and the money to make seismic shifts. They won’t just copy the traditional banking model, they’ll be doing something brand new which causes tension in the market. For the big banks, the time to act is now, to cross the Banking Battlefield and start winning the war for customers.

To get across the page get in touch with 11:FS at hello@11fs.com or reach out to us on Twitter. 11:FS is a challenger consultancy that believes digital banking is only 1% finished. We can help you overcome legacy systems, create new business models, and develop the best next-gen products.

The Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) is a United States Air Force (USAF) airborne communications relay and gateway system carried by the unmanned EQ-4B and the manned Bombardier E-11A aircraft. BACN enables real-time information flow across the battlespace between similar and dissimilar tactical data link and voice systems through relay, bridging, and data translation in line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight situations.^[1] Its ability to translate between dissimilar communications systems allows them to interoperate without modification.

Because of its flexible deployment options and ability to operate at high altitudes, BACN can enable air and surface forces to overcome communications difficulties caused by mountains, other rough terrain, or distance. BACN provides critical information to all operational echelons and increases situational awareness by correlating tactical and operational air and ground pictures. For example, an Army unit on the ground currently sees a different picture than an aircrew, but with BACN, both can see the same picture.

On 22 February 2010, the Air Force and Northrop Grumman BACN Team received the 2010 Network Centric Warfare Award from the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement.^[2]

On 27 January 2020, USAF E-11A, serial 11-9358,^[3] crashed in Afghanistan at about 1:00 PM (LT); 8:30 AM (UTC).

Purpose[edit]

Individual tactical data links (e.g., Link 16, EPLRS, etc...) are just a part of the larger tactical data link network, encompassing tactical data links, common data links, and weapon data links. Most military platforms or units are equipped with a tactical data link capability tailored to their individual missions. Those tactical data link capabilities are not necessarily interoperable with one another, preventing the digital exchange of information between military units. BACN acts as a universal translator, or gateway, that makes the tactical data links work with one another.

BACN also serves as an airborne repeater, connecting tactical data link equipped military units that are not within line of sight of one another.

An operational example would be:

• A B-1 flying an orbit on one side of a mountain range needs to communicate with a Tactical Air Control Party located in a valley on the opposite side of the mountain.
• The mountain prevents line-of-sight voice and data communication
• A BACN flying an orbit over the mountain range would act as an airborne communications repeater and TDL gateway connecting the two units
• The TACP can digitally send targeting information to the B-1 cockpit and communicate via the BACN aircraft
• The two units are able to communicate in near-real time without requiring limited SATCOM resources or other bandwidth constrained beyond-line-of-sight methods

Background[edit]

Interoperability between airborne networking waveforms has been a persistent challenge. There have been multiple systems developed to address the challenge to include Air Defense Systems Integrator (ADSI),^[4] Gateway Manager,^[5] and Joint Range Extension (JRE)^[6] product lines. However, those product lines were separately funded/maintained and had interoperability concerns of their own.^[7] The solution was an 'Objective Gateway' which would serve as a Universal Translator to make data from one network interoperable with another.^[8]

In 2005, the USAF's AFC2ISRC and ESC created BACN as an Objective Gateway technology demonstrator to provide voice and data interoperability between aircraft in a single battle area. The four key principles were

• radio agnostic - it would support a variety of communication protocols
• platform agnostic - BACN could be mounted on a variety of aircraft
• un-tethered - unlike previous repeaters, which were hung from floating aerostats, BACN has the ability to move within the battlespace
• Knowledge-based intelligence - the ability to sense waveform characteristics of sender and receiver and automatically route traffic.

The BACN first flight was November 2005 at MCAS Miramar in San Diego, CA.^[9]

BACN was successfully demonstrated in Joint Expeditionary Force eXperiment (JEFX) 2006 and JEFX 2008 and selected for field deployment.^[8][10]

Joint support[edit]

Getting critical air support to troops in contact with the enemy supports our troops on the ground, as well as in the air.

This project is not just limited to combat operations. It has provided the World Food convoy commander with “comms-on-the-move.” This capability allows convoys to stay in continuous contact with air support and around command channels in the complex, adverse terrain, mitigating exposure to attacks- they no longer needed to halt to establish communications.

Platforms[edit]

The BACN prototype was originally developed and tested in 2005-2008 on the NASA WB-57 high altitude test aircraft during Joint Expeditionary Force Experiments and other experimentation venues. The last two flying WB-57s were used for this mission in Afghanistan.^[11]

BACN was also deployed for testing on a Bombardier Global Express BD-700 and originally designated as the RC-700A under a reconnaissance classification. The aircraft was later re-designated as the E-11A under the special electronics installation category.^[12] The BD-700 was selected due to its high service ceiling (up to 51,000 ft) and long flight duration (up to 12 hours). These flight characteristics are critical in providing unified datalink and voice networks in the mountainous terrain encountered in the current theater of operations.

Additional E-11As have been deployed to increase availability and flexibility. These have been used in operations in Afghanistan.^[13]

BACN payloads have also been developed, installed, and operated on special variant EQ-4B Global Hawk aircraft to provide unmanned long endurance high altitude communications coverage. The combination of BACN payloads on E-11A and EQ-4 aircraft gives planners and operators flexibility to adapt to mission needs and increase coverage in the battlespace to near 24/7 operations.^[14] The effectiveness of BACN has increased the demand for more EQ-4B Global Hawk aircraft to be created and installed with BACN to be utilized in the field.^[15] The BACN system continues to be a high in-demand system that the Air Force will more than likely continue to use for many years to come.

Northrop Grumman has also developed BACN pods that can be temporarily mounted to other various aircraft.^[16]

BACN as a concept[edit]

BACN has been a controversial program within the DoD. This is caused by a number of issues including the personality clashes between the service people who conceived the project back in late 2004 and the traditional acquisition bureaucracy.^{[citation needed]} This was particularly true between requirements developers at the former Air Force Command and Control Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance Center at Langley AFB, Virginia and their acquisition partners at the Electronic Systems Center (ESC) at Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, part of Air Force Materiel Command.

BACN divides military planners and acquisition bureaucrats on two main fronts. First, how will an 'Airborne Network' evolve beyond the existing tactical data links on today's platforms. Second, the BACN effort presupposes that the capability will initially be 'outsourced' to commercial companies that will provide an 'airborne network' as a service to the DOD for the foreseeable future.

The evolution of airborne networking[edit]

With few exceptions, today's military aircraft, in any service, are not networked. While many platforms have implemented tactical data links that allow some measure of collaboration between flights of aircraft, very little information is passed between command and control elements and attack aircraft at the tactical edge. Since 2001, the DoD has made significant progress in 'linking' platforms together. This would include some degree of cross service interoperability but within common groupings like ground attack aircraft and fighters. USAFF-15s and US NavyF/A-18s can link together using Link 16 and share some limited information between flights like target data, fuel and weapons status. On the other hand, USAF bombers like the B-52 and B-1 are not equipped with data links and cannot interoperate with either F-15s and F/A-18s. Furthermore, half the USAF A-10 and F-16 fighter force in the Air National Guard (ANG) are equipped with Situational Awareness Data Link (SADL)^[17] gear that cannot interoperate with Link 16 unless there is a 'gateway' which has radios for both data links, and a computer system that can interconnect them and translate the data. While the deployment of data links to fighter aircraft has aided flights of aircraft to coordinate their attacks locally, these systems are constrained by line of sight and cannot reach command and control centers that are often hundreds, if not thousands, of miles distant from where the fighting is taking place. While the USAF has taken the lead to field 'gateways' that can handle both connecting dissimilar links and relaying data over satellite back and forth to connect command and control to the tactical edge, the platform that carries the gateway is more often than not dedicated to another mission (like air refueling) that consumes limited resources and sub-optimizes some other critical theater activity.

There are unfortunately bigger problems with linking aircraft together with data links. While ground attack aircraft are increasingly linked, they cannot interoperate with attack helicopters or ground forces with any service. In an age where there is zero tolerance for even a single 'friendly fire' death, attack aircraft from either the Navy, Marine Corps or the Air Force use the same sensors to prevent fratricide that were used in World War I—their eyeballs.^{[citation needed]}

Late in the last decade of the Twentieth Century, defense planners began to think beyond simply 'linking' forces to 'networking' them and fundamentally changing the information model at the tactical edge from one that required a priori knowledge of required information to employ forces, or 'push' model, to one in which the information required was globally available and could be 'pulled' as required by warfighters engaged in combat. This new model came to be known as 'Network Centric Warfare (NCW).'

The drive towards NCW began in earnest with the arrival of the Bush Administration. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld drove a transformation of the DoD so that it would be capable of meeting the needs of the 21st century. This DoD-sanctioned technology push became the perfect incubator for pursuing a networked force. On Rumsfeld's recommendation, President Bush appointed a number of industry leaders to key positions within the DoD that brought with them their experience in the technology revolution that exploded in the 1990s.^{[citation needed]}

The concept is expected to evolve into the Joint Aerial Layer Network.^{[18][19][20][21][22]}

Finally, with the increasing likelihood of a contested electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) in an era of great power competition, the idea of a 'BACN-mesh' was proposed by Professor Jahara Matisek (and former E-11 BACN pilot) at the US Air Force Academy, as a way of pursuing new multi-domain war-fighting options against near-peers. Specifically, Prof. Matisek suggests that smart node pods (i.e. a BACN-light payloads affixed to aircraft with hardpoints), could provided layered BACN “bridging” connections and TDL services to war-fighters in an EMS-contested battlespace, without deploying a specific BACN aircraft. For example, in the Pacific – where infrastructure is limited – a “BACN-mesh” concept could be employed to create real-time battlespace pictures, proving useful when a near-peer adversary attempts localized jamming across the EMS. A 'BACN-mesh' concept, if properly employed with numerous smart node equipped aircraft, would 'create a complex, impregnable, and mutually reinforcing communication network with multiple relay nodes.'^[23]

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See also[edit]

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References[edit]

1. ^'The Official Home Page of the U.S. Air Force'. af.mil. Archived from the original on 22 April 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
2. ^'Northrop Grumman Airborne Communications System Wins Award for Outstanding Industry Achievement (NYSE:NOC)'. irconnect.com. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
3. ^http://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_serials/2011.html
4. ^'Ultra Electronics Advanced Tactical Systems : Products : Air Defense Systems Integrator'. ultra-ats.com. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
5. ^'Gateway Manager'. Northrop Grumman. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
6. ^'Joint Range Extension JRE'. jre-gw.com. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
7. ^'DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE FISCAL YEAR (FY) 2005 BUDGET ESTIMATES : RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST AND EVALUATION (RDT&E) DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARIES, VOLUME II'(PDF). Saffm.hq.af.mil. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2007-10-15. Retrieved 2015-09-06.
8. ^ ^ab'C4ISTAR: ENABLING WARFIGHTERS'(PDF). Rusi.org. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2007-10-12. Retrieved 2015-09-06.
9. ^Battlefield Airborne Communications Node Spiral 1 First Flight. YouTube. 31 May 2012. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
10. ^[1]Archived August 11, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
11. ^Andrew Tarantola. 'Why Are the Most Vital Aircraft in the USAF Arsenal Owned by NASA?'. Gizmodo. Gawker Media. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
12. ^'U.S. Air Force Officially Designates Aircraft Flying Battlefield Airborne Communications Node System'. irconnect.com. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
13. ^'The Aviationist » U.S. airborne communication plane could be tracked on the Web for 9 hours during air strike that killed Taliban leaders in Afghanistan'. The Aviationist. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
14. ^'Two More Global Hawks to Receive BACN Coms Gateways.'Defense Update, 1 February 2012.
15. ^'More BACN, Please. Data Node for Global Hawks in High Demand'. Defensetech. 2017-07-06. Retrieved 2017-10-03.
16. ^'Smart Node Pod'(PDF). Northropgrumman.com. Retrieved 2015-09-06.
17. ^'Tactical communications group adds situational awareness data link SADL capabilities to its tactical data link communications solutions', G2TCG.
18. ^[2]Archived October 24, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
19. ^Seffers, George I. (2013-06-01). 'Joint Aerial Layer Network Vision Moves Toward Reality | SIGNAL Magazine'. Afcea.org. Archived from the original on 2015-09-30. Retrieved 2015-09-06.
20. ^'Colonel discusses vision of joint aerial layer network'. af.mil. Archived from the original on 14 February 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
21. ^[3]Archived March 2, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
22. ^'All U.S. Aircraft Could Talk to Each Other, Someday'. DoD Buzz. Retrieved 5 September 2015.
23. ^Matisek, Jahara (24 June 2020). 'Communications in Multi-Domain Operations: What Does the BACN Bring?'. OTH Journal.

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