A financial institution’s transformation journey has achieved more than compliance through optimizing its existing software investments and improving processes with guidance from HCLTech consulting.
A client combines compliance imperatives with initiatives to boost efficiency, agility and collaboration, relying on the experts from HCLTech consulting.
About the Client
The client is a financial institution specializing in public finance. It provides retail and commercial banking services to individuals and small- and medium-sized enterprises, as well as asset management and insurance. The client is headquartered in the EU, boasts a workforce of more than 30,000 employees, manages a balance sheet of more than €50 billion and has a core shareholder value of about €20 billion.
The Challenge
Dissatisfied users were taking issue with a tool used to manage crucial activities.
Like many similar institutions, the client has an extensive portfolio of IT activities. The organization's business side often drives these activities because of its stake in IT projects. The client organized the administration of activities around a structure to capture both the business and IT side in its efforts to manage the portfolio of IT projects. The client also outsourced a significant part of the delivery to an external service provider, which meant all parties had to collaborate to deliver the required IT changes and maintenance.
Clarity from Broadcom Software was used primarily by project managers on both the business and IT sides to plan individual projects, track progress and report to management. Portfolio Managers managed their portfolios, ensuring management of IT and business milestones and dependencies. Team members booked their time in timesheets for the different project activities, allowing for a detailed grip on time and cost spent. With this feature, the financial institution maintained and managed its relationship with the service provider. The downside? Users were limited to the Classic User interface (CUX).
Users considered the look and feel of the CUX archaic, and some business processes created an experience that felt clunky because of how the modeling was done.
Worst of all, some standard capabilities were not available in a satisfactory way for activities such as staffing management. For example, it was impossible to properly match role demand and available resources in the existing setup. It was understandable that many users were not happy despite the tool's importance to the organization.
The Objective
Through the orderly resolution plan validated by the European Commission in 2012, the client no longer has any commercial activity and manages a complex balance sheet of considerable size. The resolution aims to mitigate systemic risk and minimize reliance on the taxpayers in its operating countries. The client has strategically reduced its asset portfolio from over €200 billion over the last decade to €30 billion.
The client seized the opportunity to focus fresh on cohesion and purpose, charting a new course and aligning its mission with four core values that will guide its future endeavors.
- Agility: Navigating change swiftly and effectively
- Cohesion: Fostering collaboration across the organization
- Commitment to the general interest: Serving the broader community
- Trust cultivation: Building enduring relationships
The Solution
A solution to these challenges was closer than the client expected. Clarity did indeed have the potential to provide all the required capabilities and more in an interface that would satisfy even the most dissatisfied users. Adopting Clarity's Modern User interface (MUX) was all it would take to put those capabilities at the users' fingertips.
In mid-2023, the right moment arrived to start a pivot toward introducing the MUX. The technical track to configure Clarity to function in a modern way, retire the classic interface and prepare users for the change was of the utmost importance. The team also seized the opportunity to evaluate process improvements and introduce new capabilities offered out-of-the-box with the Clarity solution.
Key highlights of the solution implementation include:
- Setting the stage: The HCLTech advisors and client team carefully planned the upgrade implementation over three months. After an initial analysis of the current, or as-is, state, a decision was made on which currently configured functions and features should transfer to the new interface and which could be decommissioned. The client's clear choices enabled an efficient and fast transfer to the MUX side of Clarity.
- Enhancing performance: The HCLTech consulting team applied best practices to identify which out-of-the-box capabilities could be unlocked and deliver value with minimal user impact. One quick win was enabling Clarity's standard staffing capabilities, fulfilling a longstanding need of the project and resource managers. Tailored and targeted training sessions were scheduled as part of a train-the-trainer approach, enabling the client's internal talent to manage spreading knowledge into the organization.
- Envisioning the future: HCLTech worked with the client on a journey to define a desired future, or to-be, state. The vision includes process improvements and introducing more new capabilities in a collaborative effort to make the vision a reality. For example, the plan consists of completely re-designing the time booking process to better fit the client's needs with a process based on Clarity's out-of-the-box features. Using road-mapping capabilities and Lean Portfolio Management are next on the list. The client made great strides in a relatively short time. Now, considering starting the journey to implement Value Stream Management (VSM) seems like a small step to take.
The Benefits
Productivity, transparency and a great user experience are only the beginning.
The MUX upgrade of Clarity made it a pleasure for most users to use the tool again. The users are better supported in their day-to-day work, processes and lead times are shorter and relevant data is presented more transparently. The new system is a future-proof design and positions the organization to continue a more value-driven journey conducive to implementing VSM.
Upgrading Clarity to the MUX is an excellent example of a project that aligns with the financial institution's core values. The client's Clarity users experience a more collaborative approach toward project management, fostering cohesion within the organization. Improved transparency delivered through the MUX cultivates trust in the organization and the service provider. The journey is conducted in an agile way, with a backlog of options and requirements to continue the progressive improvements to how the client functions, supported by Clarity.
