Thoughts on IT Management

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Thoughts on IT Management

• Presented by
• John Clark
• Cutter Associates, Inc.

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Reasons For Automation

• Cost and efficiency
• Business scalability
• Business agility
• Competitive edge
• Service improvement
• Risk reduction

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Technology strategy

• Implementation of systems without
  strategy/architecture plan will not be successful
• Changes in the business model will be harder to
  implement
• Lack of strategy often leads to fragmented and
  unconsolidated data
• Lack of strategy leads to lack of processing
  flexibility
• Lack of strategy leads to redundant processing in
  multiple applications resulting in higher cost of
  ownership
• Tactical/silo solutions often result in higher
  business risk and the potential for costly errors

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Generic Technology Model

• Guiding Principles
• Support current and future products and services
  (business model)
• Manage business and operating risk
• Durable, scalable, extendable
• Standards based
• Systems architecture
• Data management
• Integration architecture
• Application selection / development

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Generic Technology Model (continued)

• Guiding Principles (continued)
• Normalize
• Try to do things one way and only one way
• Data
• Process
• Consolidation of common functions
• De-normalize in some cases
• Less complexity
• Efficiency
• Speed

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Generic Technology Model (continued)

• Guiding Principles (continued)
• Link applications using planned integration
  strategies
• Elimination of point-to-point interfaces
• Middleware
• Message based communication
• Standard protocols (internal, external)
• Application independent

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Generic Technology Model (continued)

• Guiding Principles (continued)
• Implementation principles
• Differentiate between strategic and commodity
  functions
• Buy before building
• Build
• Competitive advantage
• No buy solution
• Centralize and share services (data transfer,
  protocols) where possible
• Non-standard application software may be
  acceptable
• Compelling business case
• Required to achieve competitive advantage
• Economically viable
• Minimal threat to overall stability and support
• May result in multiple systems to address similar
  business needs

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Key Factors for Success

• Executive sponsorship
• Identification of business benefit (ROI)
• Identification of stakeholders and getting them
  involved
• Proper definition and scope
• Cohesive project planning and implementation
• Active project risk analysis and mitigation
• Well designed ongoing support infrastructure

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Management Sponsorship

• Executive sponsorship comes from the top
• Be visible
• Show commitment
• Solutions must benefit the users and be marketed
  to them
• A steering committee must be formed to guide the
  process

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Role of Steering Committee

• Regular periodic meetings
• Resolve issues across enterprise
• IT vs business
• Accept overall project direction and schedule
• Facilitate timely decision making

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Role of Working Committees

• Working committees can be formed under the
  steering committee
• Will resolve issues pertaining to their specific
  area
• Will include project staff, end-users and support
  staff
• Issues not resolved by working committee will be
  escalated to Steering Committee

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IT Primer

• Know the right questions to ask
• Do not be intimidated by buzz words
• Many times the one speaking does not fully
  understand what he/she is saying
• The basic principals are logical and simple

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Technology Principles

• Everything starts with the data
• Data Centric
• Data is separate from the applications
• Data is accessible independent of the
  applications
• Result is more flexibility to add or replace
  business processing components

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Some Examples
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Changing footprints
Type 1
Type 2
Type 3
Analytics
Portfolio construction
Generally weaker Than type 2
Restrictions
Order Entry
Trading
Valuation/accounting
Performance Measurement Attribution Contribution
Client Reporting
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Data Centric Model
Analytics
Fixed Trading
Compliance
Equity Trading
Data Warehouse/Hub
Web Server
Risk
Custody
Reporting
Books and Records
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Client Server

• Beware
• Can mean several different things
• Fat client
• Most of the business rules are in the PC and not
  the central server
• High cost of ownership
• Thin client
• Runs in a browser (IE)
• Lower cost of ownership
• Remote access (virtual application)

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Generic Two-Tier Architecture
- UI definition - UI widgets - Business rules -
Imbedded SQL or DB layer
- Windows 95,98,NT - VB, C, PowerBuilder -
MFC, Third party controls - COM
Client
Database
- SQL compliant DB - Stored Procedures - Business
rules Processing - Data import/export -
Reporting
Unix, NT Sybase, Oracle, SQL Server
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Fat Client
Client
- UI definition - UI widgets - Business rules
Processing - Imbedded SQL
- Windows 95,98,NT - PowerBuilder
Database
- SQL compliant DB - Data import/export
Unix, NT Sybase, Oracle, SQL Server
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Questions Answers