Simplifying the system
IT systems
pmple
survival
Well before the start of our recent Strategie Review, it was dear that our
information technology (IT) setup was due for a fundamental overhaul, both in
terms of the systems architecture and the infrastructure supporting it. We ask
Patrick Maes to explain what's happening and how we're dealing with it.
pjpporting business
Fundamental questions
Intelligent engine
Responsible transfer
What's NewS Issue 9 October/November 1999 I
Maes, who Ieft Bankers Trust to joint
Rabobank International in July as
global head of IT systems development,
and as a member of the administration
management committee (AMC) under
Alain Younes, sums up the situation suc-
cinctly: 'Our portfolio of IT systems is too
costly in relation to the overall volume of
business. What's more, it has far too rnany
components, it is excessively complex, it
contains far too ntany redundancies both
in terms of "functionalities" as well as
data content. It was assembled piecemeal
over the years, without an overarching
architectural vision, so that today we are
saddled with a lot of legacy equipment
that lacks a common platform.'
fundamental questions - questions about
who we are and what kind of business our
management wants to be in the future.
The answers will define our requirements,
and the details of our further development
- which is crucially about business and
relationships rather than software and
systems. The architectural underpinnings,
Cost for supporting this complex and
unwieldy edifice - including outlays for
contracted IT implementation, develop
ment, and support professionals - eat up
fully 33% of our business revenue. This
compares to a benchmark of 16% in the
investment banking community world-
wide, and 10% in retail banking. As any
layman can deduce, this is a percentage
that our organization cannot sustain. 'In
today's competitive environment,' Maes
says, 'a smaller bank simply has to be
much more innovative and nimble with
regard the use of its resources than larger
and wealthier competitors. This is a
matter of survival, pure and simple.'
The first priority for Maes, working to-
gether with his colleague Bernie Adamson,
head of IT Infrastructure, will be to
drastically simplify the picture. 'We have
some good components in the system, and
rather a lot more legacy components that
are clearly weak. Our first task is to sort
them out - selecting the core components
and reducing the costly and redundant de-
bris - and to trim the amount we're now
obliged to spend on outside consultants.
We need to do this with some urgency to
maintain and enhance our capacity to
serve our clients and support a networked
business into the next century.'
laving described the first phase of the
peration, Patrick Maes lays out the long
term vision that informs his work. 'We
are looking beyond the present cleanup
operation and asking ourselves some
y
Exciting prospects are IT - Patrick Maes (Ieft)
and Bernie Adamson are busy
while complex on a technical level, are
easily understood front a conceptual point
of view. Where we now have a range of
different systems and interfaces - what
Maes calls a sort of 'spaghetti' with a little
of everything thrown in - we will eventu-
ally emerge with a single information
environment supported by a common
'message bus.' Among other things, this
bus will enable us to have a unified
interface and a centralized knowledge
base for the entire organization.
Once our interface and know-how are
centralized, we will install what Maes
calls 'an intelligent workfiow engine'.
This will enable us to move towards 'net
real-time processing', under which data
moves through our systems almost instan-
taneously rather than with the present
long delay. This architecture will allow us
the flexibility to plug in increasingly intel
ligent new tools, particularly into the
front office, and thus to rapidly exploit
business opportunities as they evolve. This
system will ultimately be scalable and
implicitly event-driven, which is to say
that the same base of information can be
infinitely reconfigured according to the
context in which it will be used. It is
based on a concept known as distributed
computing. In other words, this is
definitely not technology for its own sake
but rather an information environment
tailored to our business objectives.
Meanwhile, the infrastructure is being
redesigned to maximize the choices
implicit in the architecture; both will
obviously reflect the conclusions of our
Strategie Review. Because this Review was
so recently rounded off, we cannot report
the fine details as they relate to IT. But
among the features already contemplated
are a devolution of responsibility: 'Instead
of running all services out of Utrecht and
London, we are moving towards a
situation where head office becomes an
implementation arm and responsibility for
operations is transferred to the regions
themselves,' says Bernie Adamson. While
most of us are now (rightly) focused on
the immediate challenges associated with
deliveringa smooth Y2K transition, RI
is also on the verge of an exciting longer
term transformation, one that will give us
a far more advanced and flexible environ
ment in which to work. 'We have a lot of
work ahead of us,' says Maes, 'but the
prospects are exciting indeed. We have
the people and the technology to change,
and our small size can actually work in
our favour. But the most critical success
factor is our corporate cultural willingness
to adapt.'
