What do 300 high schoolers, a treacherous dirt road, and an epic keg party have to do with your bank's data strategy? Everything, according to Joshua Barclay and Nick Del Francia from BusinessNext.

In this unique episode, Joshua shares a wild story from his Connecticut party-throwing days to illustrate banking's biggest challenge: it's not about your products (everyone sells the same checking accounts and credit cards), it's about the experience—the "road"—that leads customers to those products.

You'll discover:

• Why 66% of consumers want personalized experiences, but only 42% actually receive financial guidance from their bank

• How data silos are quietly sabotaging customer loyalty across all generations

• The uncomfortable truth about why your AI strategy is "dead on arrival" without unified data

• Real examples of how fragmented systems create frustrated customers (and employees)

• A practical roadmap for creating the "paved road" experience that keeps customers coming back

Based on a hit keynote speech at Future Branches Boston, this episode combines surprising statistics, practical insights, and some laughs about pink suit jackets and terrible Lifetime movies.

If you're tired of point solutions creating more problems than they solve, this episode reveals why unified data isn't just nice to have—it's the prerequisite for AI and everything else you're trying to accomplish.