Platform Modernisation – Challenges, Technologies and Tips for Success – Part 3

In my previous blogs I talked about some of the challenges to platform modernisation and a game-changing approach to simplify modernisation.

I finish with my tips for modernisation success whether you’re starting small or big…

Tips for Success

The tips for success vary depending on your goal.

If you’re starting small wanting to solve an immediate business need, the following tips are vital:

1. Understand the business requirements and the actual problem. This might sound obvious but often the business and the users like to present you with an actual solution rather than explaining the what and why. Elicit the what and the why and then come up with the how.
2. Good planning is always key.
3. Tight collaboration between the different parties involved.

If you are looking to modernise your whole platform, it’s important to have a long-term vision of your end goal before you begin. Once this is clear, the following tips are priceless:

1. Do a 360 ‘current state’ business and technical analysis. You need to evaluate your current state to be able to plan your future one ranging from business challenges, needs and workflows to the technology currently being used.
2. Invest in the latest technology and plan for the future. Cloud adoption and web-based architecture are the backbones of a modernisation programme. This allows for data centricity, scalability, agility and a zero-desktop install model.
3. Focus on building workflows not applications and thus bring siloed development teams together and consider creating a best of breed platform that is a mixture of vendor and in-house applications that fit with your business processes and needs.
4. For in-house development (client or vendor side) agree on common design standards, implementation and governance.
5. For vendors understand where you fit into a platform and set of workflows, find your specialism and embrace openness, flexibility and collaboration.
6. Plan for a phased approach to modernisation and break your programme down into manageable chunks. This should include a migration strategy.
7. Strong collaboration between the business and technology. It’s important to get business buy-in early. Find those desk champions and let them advocate for you because if you can continually deliver value to the business throughout your modernisation programme then you will succeed.

What does the future of front office technology look like?

The good news is that the future of front office technology is bright!

The word platformification comes to mind with the end goal of creating a ‘single platform’ experience where clients can pick ‘n’ mix best of breed applications that meet their business needs and that play nicely together.

To do this the future will be about simplification, automation and collaboration with data playing the leading role.

Just like other industries, capital market applications will need to become flexible and open with APIs becoming the norm. Technology that can bring data to the forefront in a contextual way will come to dominate.  And, those technologies that simplify and automate workflows will be able to deliver change at speed and create unified platforms and user experiences.  For the users, this means personalised client experiences, deeper market insights and better execution outcomes.

Let’s help our clients take back control of their technology and drive their business forward!