g
development was to write about 90 key screens for the system, which was ‘very prescriptive’. But Chin maintained that TCS contributed just as much, that this represented ‘good collaboration’, and that ‘this was a model I would be happy for the organisation to take on for other initiatives’. On the other hand, there were examples where Ambank changed its processes to match the system. In terms of permanent process changes, Chin counted about 100, and there was a smaller number temporary workarounds, where it was still being decided later whether to make a permanent change to the processes, or to the system. ‘We are still testing these hypotheses,’ Chin said, in April 2014. Testing was broken into different stages, starting with a pre-system integration testing (SIT) stage, an SIT stage, UAT, operational acceptance testing and operational readiness testing. The SIT stage was similar to UAT, but during SIT TCS resources took the lead with Ambank staff in the back seat ‘to gain exposure’, and the situation was reversed for UAT. There were six cycles of UAT testing. An automated testing tool, Silk Test from Microfocus, was also procured, helping to handle approximately 55,000 test cases in all. Meanwhile, ‘we knew based on other people’s experiences that conversion was the tricky bit, so we started conversion early on,’ said Chin. After testing and regression was complete, the bank went into deployment mode. This included six rounds of operational readiness testing, and six mock runs, on alternate weeks. This ran through October and early
November 2013, leading up to the big bang weekend. The challenge of managing the project internally was highlighted by the fact that about 52 vendors needed to be dealt with. In total, including part-time vendors, vendors’ partners and part-time testing firms, the number of entities involved was nearer 100, but ‘not all the time’. There were those 90 or so interfaces that needed to be tested. However, the core project team at Ambank was only made up of around 150 people. ‘A lot of people say this was a small number, but I didn’t believe in building a big empire,’ said Chin. This was a combination of internal re-designations and some hires from outside the group where skills were lacking. Rather than relying on a consulting firm to bring in large numbers of bodies, individuals were hired from all over the world, based on their resumes. ‘We went all over the shop, hiring people from Portugal, Slovakia, Australia, the Philippines and elsewhere,’ said Chin.
Results
As for the cutover weekend itself, there were ‘a lot of people with bated breath’. ‘We all knew how critical it was, and that nobody had attempted to convert all three systems – core system, enterprise data warehouse and teller front-end – in one go before,’ said Chin. Reassurance was provided by the final dress rehearsal, but ‘we knew that there were a few more moving parts, and that you cannot fully compare the real thing to a test environment’. However, Chin felt that the whole bank was behind the project. The CEO was onsite three times over the weekend. People remained ‘relatively calm, despite nervous moments’, and the bank did not slip in terms of timing. By the Sunday evening the green light was given to start going live, and the systems for some channels, branches and ATMs were switched back on. ‘When we declared that we were ready to go live, we could share a bit of relief,’ said Chin. The result was a success. There were some ‘teething problems’, but the bank suffered not a single day of downtime. All the channels were able to operate since going live, with at worst some minor performance issues. ‘Some transactions buffered a bit, but it was never so bad that you couldn’t transact,’ Chin recalled. Other milestones were the first end-of-day and end-of- month balances, and the first year-end close, which was at the end of March 2014. ‘We were actually most worried for the enterprise data warehouse, but it was one of the brightest spots. So far, everything has been fine,’ he said. To handle customer feedback and complaints, Ambank set up ‘a strong customer task force’, and Chin conceded that due to the changes ‘we had some noise but that has largely gone away’. There were ‘some weaknesses with some of the designs’ of Bancs in areas where Malaysia is peculiar, such as the way fixed deposits and some payments are treated. ‘In hindsight the business underestimated how much some of this matters to our customers,’ Chin felts. Not every area was ready out of the box so Bancs had to be customised in some areas. Nevertheless, Ambank has been keen to avoid customising Bancs wherever possible, to make it easier to upgrade in future. This is a lesson learnt from the bank’s use of the Systematics system, Chin said. Any design customisations have to be cleared by a technical committee at the bank. ‘We are not doing it blindly, and are careful of customising too much.’
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www.ibsintelligence.com
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