DIGITAL DISRUPTION
“ THE QUESTION THAT banks have to constantly ask themselves today is – how do we become more agile and adept at dealing with the challenges that fintech presents ?” says Jason Rolles , CEO of BlueOptima . “ The answer lies in enhancing the operational efficiency and effectiveness of software development operations and retaining the revenue opportunities that support them .”
The market has been fundamentally disrupted by the rise of the fintech . Software engineers are branching out and creating solutions that are designed to neatly solve holes in the market , and they are taking away significant revenue opportunities from the banks . To resolve this , the sector needs to find new ways of becoming operationally effective in the realm of software development , to shed the skin of legacy and lumbering complexity in favour of agility and capability .
“ It doesn ’ t take many engineers to develop a killer product or proposition and banks have thousands of these engineers working for them already ,” says Rolles . “ They are in the depths of the institution , tied up in maintaining legacy systems . Today , the term
‘ legacy system ’ has a disparaging ring to it , but the reality is that these systems are holding up the financial infrastructure of the globe . They are the pillars of the finance system , and those who maintain them are delivering incremental change across massive infrastructure .”
Software engineers caught up on this treadmill often end up filling their days managing and maintaining these systems and it is easy for them to get lost . The challenge is to hold onto the talent that understands the business without losing the ability to keep the system running . What BlueOptima has done is bring insight into how these software development resources are being used and their levels of efficiency to the attention of the decision maker and executive . Efficiencies and capacities can be meaningfully interpreted to allow for the organisation to disperse resources more effectively so talent can focus on disruptive new technologies and ideas .
“ Banks gain access to the information they need to make relevant structural changes ,” adds Rolles . “ For example , they can see where they need less people to maintain an enhancement stream
16 January 2018