The Impact of Business Technology Optimisation on Organisations in the Financial Sector

The Impact of Business Technology Optimisation on Organisations in the Financial Sector

1. Introduction

This report will examine how Business Technology Optimisation (BTO) can have an impact on organisational IT operations in the financial services sector. The report will consist of descriptions of what BTO is, how the technology can impact an organisation at various levels and how it can prove vital to the criticality of the financial services sector.

This report will represent BTO technology from the viewpoint of Mercury BTO Enterprise software. However Mercury was recently bought out by Hewlett Packard (HP) who are currently re-branding the product but with all the same capabilities and processes.

A) Description of Technology: Business Technology Optimisation (BTO)

Business Technology Optimisation is a technology that acts to bring IT into alignment with business operations by automating and integrating the strategic functions of a business and its IT infrastructure. The ability to optimise performance, quality and problem resolution of Information Technologies makes it an invaluable tool for IT mangers implementing new IT systems or infrastructures on an organisational wide basis.

BTO technology acts to deliver high quality and performance IT systems through each stage of the implementation stages and HP state that this is a process 'from requirements management through planning, scheduling and running tests to defect tracking, in one, browser-based software product'. A huge advantage of BTO technology is its ability to aid the management in pre and post productions phases to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of IT operations.

The aim of BTO is to centralise and standardise the testing capabilities vital in new IT system deployment. It enables managers to manage risk, resources, project team communications, shared project progress and overall the contribution to an organisational culture focused on application excellence.

B) Description of Sector: Financial Services (Markets & Institutions)

The financial services sector is highly dependant on data, about its customers and about the market, in order to compete at the highest possible level. Data collection and analysis is vital in order to create a competitive advantage over its competitors and this can only be initiated via the means of a highly robust and integrated information technology system. This includes applications from external data centres to on site CRM systems all of which have to be operating at their optimum level with ultimately no downtime. The financial services sector is such a critical environment in looking after all types of wealth, that performance of IT systems are always mission critical as competition and customer loyalty can be so fragile when it comes to personal or corporate wealth.. Therefore there is a requirement among organisations to increase the quality processes of their IT infrastructure especially when implementing new technology projects such as data centres or central equipment rooms that look after key applications such as market data and network performance. Krishnan et al (1999) state that 'With increased competition from new products and delivery channels, firms in the financial services industry strive to succeed by improving their performance. To improve performance, the focus is on both cost reduction and quality improvement'.

2. Impacts of Business Technology Optimization on Financial Institutions

 Operations and business processes

A major impact of BTO on business processes is moving to a 'Centre of Excellence - CoE Model (see appendix). 'Simply put, a CoE is an internal organization focused on optimizing application characteristics such as performance, quality, and availability. It provides a management and automation platform for increasingly complex processes, consulting and support services, as well as advocacy to help the organization optimize these attributes' Mercury (2005). If BTO technology were to be implemented, institutions would need to change their business processes on new technology implementation and raise the standards and expectations of what employees should abide to.

The impact of BTO on organisational operations and business processes can be quite substantial as whole new ways of working are created. There is a traditional approach to the implementation of new IT systems as a series of discrete tasks, where each team completes their job and hands it over to the next specialist team. This is especially true within IT development in financial institutions, as was experienced whilst working at Morgan Stanley (MS) on a new data-centre construction project. Individual work-streams or 'silos' as they were named, worked independently on producing test plans and documentation for areas such as Networks, Market Data, E-Trading and IT Security and not coherently centralising the data regarding faults, performance or progress. 'The assumption is that if each team performs its task correctly, the end result will be a high-quality, high-performance application that meets business and end-user requirements' HP (2007).

Mercury (2005) suggest that these assumptions that current business processes hold are too often proved wrong for a number of reasons:

1. Business objectives are frequently lost in translation

2. Expertise often goes untapped

3. Data isn't collected or shared

4. Finger pointing runs rampant

This is where BTO software and practices/processes such as Mercury BTO Enterprise can be implemented to resolve such issues. Once BTO technology and its practices were established at MS the impact on project performance was vast, as up-to-date, consistent and formalised documentation could be provided and shared to the project team. The BTO implications therefore have a major impact on the current business operations and processes by means of:

1. Efficiency - Reducing the time and effort in implementing new technology.

2. Redundancy - Preventing redundant data storage between work-streams.

3. Improvement - Improving working practices and the organisational culture.

4. Consistency - Allowing for consistency of documentation