A prominent European bank with global interests and a large presence in emerging markets was replacing its legacy FX platform with a new system from a different vendor. The project had been significantly overrunning and the business required an urgent review of progress and approach.
The client engaged Brickendon to conduct a review into the project with a specific focus on the design for 24 x 5.5 availability.
Client Challenges
The client had many challenges to replace the legacy system. These included:
The engagement had to be conducted without impacting existing project timescales or
diverting staff.
Considerable sensitivity was needed to manage the relationship between the business and
project which had been damaged by increased costs and delays to the timeline.
The legacy system had been in the bank for a long time and there were more than 100
bespoke direct system interfaces including external interfaces.
The project had agreed a long phased migration to the new platform over a 6-month period.
Detailed technical and business analysis was required into the underlying reasons behind a
daily hour-long system maintenance outage in the new system which the project had
recently discovered.
Extensive management and technology consulting had to be performed in limited time.
Trust between the business and the project had declined and needed to be rebuilt.
The project was very high profile and had considerable management attention at the most
senior levels.
Brickendon Solution
The client engaged Brickendon to stand up a team of management and technical
consultants to work alongside the banks business & IT teams to perform a detailed review
of progress to date then to run the implementation and testing of the new software
platform. The work included:
Detailed logical and technological architectural review and to plan a phased approach to
implementing a solution
Ran a light version of Brickendon’s Technology Maturity Assessment (TMM) and Quality
Maturity Assessment (QMM) to assess problems and “get ahead” of the challenges.
Brickendon leveraged their extensive systems knowledge, coupled with a deep
understanding of the Foreign Exchange business to understand the cause of the one hour
outage, to explain the underlying causes to the bank’s Board, and to work with the
vendor to tune performance of the system. The downtime was reduced to under two
minutes and was accepted by the business, removing a major blocker to the project.
Brickendon worked closely with the project team, the business and stakeholders to
improve communications and understanding between the groups and enhance
relationships. By the end of the engagement, trust had been re-established, the business
was supporting the project team who now had a path to deliver the outcomes.
Client Benefits
The benefits realised by the advisory and change implemented by the Brickendon team were significant.
All the outcomes defined at the outset and were achieved within the timeframe and budget set out in
the project brief. These included:
The client succeeded in meeting all of the planned and desired delivery targets of rolling out the new
system and the 24/5.5 uptime was arranged with an acceptable 2 min daily down time. Senior
Management were pleased that the outcome was realized.
The project over run costs were contained and the project was delivered without further delays
The services to the business increased and business experienced the desired revenue generation
uplift (after 18 months).
The business and IT communication and relationship has improved for the low point at the start of
Brickendon engagement and the hope is that with trust restored it can continue to improve.
The new Technology Maturity Assessment (TMM) and Quality Maturity Assessment (QMM) provided
a planned roadmap for improvement over time of the system of this project but also for other
projects.
The platform was successfully rolled out to the client’s international customer-base spanning EMEA,
the US and Asia.
The new operating model experienced a greater level of risk transparency, reporting metrics and
customer visibility.