Technology Planning with Sandeep Balan

 

Hey, GonzoBankers. Tony DeSanctis back with another hot take.

We talked a little bit already about vendors and vendor management and how to make the most out of those in one of our recent hot takes, but we want to talk a little bit about technology more collectively and as a strategic tool in how we use technology.

So I’ve asked Sandeep, who runs our technology and data advisory practice here, to join us and talk a little bit about technology beyond the vendor, I want to call it, and what’s important to that overall relationship.

So, Sandeep, we talk about technology and everybody just thinks that means vendor, vendor management, but it’s much more than that, isn’t it?

Absolutely. When we want to think about technology and how technology is going to help a CIO and the financial institution over three to five years, we like to take a very holistic view around people, process and technology.

Right.

So in each area, we want to look at what is important for them over three to five years for their growth, for managing their risk along with that growth.

Sure.

And what are the opportunities to either spend or reduce their spend?

Got it.

And how those application platforms are going to really work with them in their growth.

So our technology strategy approach is very holistic around people, process and technology. We want to first start thinking about how technology and IT professionals are interacting with the business. What is the strategic alignment there? How well are they engaged with the business? What is the business perspective on their take on IT?

So the people side of it and business lines within the financial institution, vendors aren’t even in this discussion yet.

Yeah. So we do cover vendors under technology risk management, and that’s the other module that we focus on. We look at governance tools, risk management tools, how effectively they’re looking at the software aspect of it and how the processes are aligned to actually manage that technology risk.

We look at it from a governance perspective.

Okay.

How effectively do they do portfolio management strategy around projects? How well do they execute on projects?

Got it.

And how well do they do business cases, and how well do they think about realizing the value on transformational initiatives that they engaged in two or three years before?

Right. Got it. Are they getting the ROI out of it?

Okay.

The other area that we focus on is the IT organization. So with the IT organization, we tend to look at how well it is structured to support that growth.

Got it.

What are some of the key challenges? What is the organizational structure? What are the areas that they need to focus on from a staffing perspective?

Got it.

Resources, skills that are going to enable them to continue to grow.

We focus on technology spend. We have a performance vault that we leverage to be able to understand how well they are spending, what are the key categories that they are overspending on, and are there opportunities to reduce that spend?

Got it.

We look at contracts to see if there are opportunities to better leverage their contracts and get better pricing.

We also focus on applications. What is their roadmap for the applications? Are the applications really supporting the organization? What do they need to change to stay on their growth trajectory?

And the last module that we focus on is IT service delivery, because there’s a lot of IT operations that happen, right? All of the integrations, the help desk, everything IT does in order to keep the infrastructure up, the business services up.

Sure.

How well are they executing on that?

And the key thing with this approach is, since we are looking at it very holistically, we are able to deliver a strategic roadmap, an IT strategic roadmap.

Okay.

Or an IT strategic technology plan that many of our financial institutions want to take to the board.

Gotcha.

And help them really ingrain what they’re trying to do or achieve in three to five years.

Gotcha.

So folks, if you don’t have a technology strategy and you just have a vendor strategy, you really need to be thinking about all those steps that Sandeep talked about and how to build that out appropriately.

If you want to do it yourself, obviously there’s that option. But let us know in the comments what you’re doing with your overall technology strategy and how you’re managing it.

And certainly let us know if we can help you out with that.