Consolidation of Banking Functions

Business Challenge

A global investment bank made the decision to centralise key business functions in order to gain competitive advantage and reduce costs. In order to meet this business requirement, an IT infrastructure was required to integrate key business functions within the bank together with a Disaster Recovery infrastructure.

This high profile project requiring the seamless migration of 400 key Business Users and their Business Critical Applications to the new infrastructure.

Added challenges were the requirements to deliver to tight timescales, the meeting of exacting business standards, zero downtime and minimal disruption to business.

Solution

Delivery of this project required managing a large multidisciplinary team, coordinating closely with the key departments within the bank and managing the third party vendors, specifically:

• Managed the multi-disciplinary team of bank employees, consultants and external vendors
• Project planned and managed every detail of the operation
• Carried out detailed Risk Management
• Defined and ensured the meeting of quality assurance standards
• Defined the Testing Criteria and Test Specifications
• Managed vendors to ensure project delivered to timescales
• Closely coordinated with business and operational departments within the bank
• Managed internal and external products and services suppliers to ensure on time delivery, migration of Business Services, etc.
• Defining Service Level Agreements and set up Support Contracts with internal and external suppliers.

Business Benefits

There were a number of business benefits:

• Consolidation of Central Services resulted in significant savings in overhead costs
• Increased efficiency of key business functions due to centralisation
• Project was delivered within the specified timescales and to the exacting standards demanded