Case Study

Situation

For a leading U.S. commercial bank, Bauer Consulting led a successful strategic technology evaluation and selection engagement.  To keep pace with high growth, numerous standalone software applications were developed and deployed at the bank that, over time, resulted in an IT environment that was overly complex, poorly integrated, and difficult and risky to change.  Operational problems were a consequence: disjointed business processes, high IT spending, weak operational controls, and slow time-to-market for new products.  Collectively, these adversely impacted the bank’s ability to scale profitably and its competitiveness in the market place.  To address this problem, the IT organization proposed replacing many of their major applications with a core banking application, which is a single, large integrated system.  It would be the most far reaching IT initiative in the bank’s history, affecting nearly every functional and business unit.  Because the business-side held them in low confidence, their proposal met significant skepticism and resistance.

Action

Bauer Consulting was retained as an objective third-party to assess whether or not a core banking system was right for the bank and if so select a preferred vendor.  To achieve these objectives, we tailored the methodology to include a joint decision making process between business and IT stakeholders.  Accordingly per our recommendation, both the CIO and COO were co-executive sponsors of the initiative.  Senior business and IT stakeholders were identified and recruited to participate on a steering committee charged with issuing the final recommendation.  We then executed the technology assessment and vendor evaluation over four sequential stages and at three levels of the organization: line management (technology fitment), heads of business and functional units (benefits), and executive management (business case). Throughout the process, the business and IT stakeholders collaborated extensively, particularly in difficult trade-off and other major decisions.  At the end of the process, the steering committee recommended the bank implement a core banking system.

Results

By bringing business into the process and sharing decision making rights, the IT organization shifted their business constituents from skeptics to partners. Their collaboration also produced a more thorough evaluation as well as prepared the organization for an intense multi-year implementation.  With broad support of the organization, the CIO and COO presented the core banking proposal, the largest IT initiative in the bank’s history, to the board of directors who approved the initiative.