Case Studies

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© Copyright 2013 Axis Technology Consulting, LLC
Driving Business Architecture
Challenge
• Business architecture focuses on driving organization, governance and standard processes (including
methodology) that drive alignment between technology initiatives and the overall business strategy.
1
Solution
• The team kicked off with a business strategy alignment
effort.
• Then the team performed an extensive requirements
analysis and information architecture effort involving the
user community from conception to testing.
• The team developed a target state comprehensive user
experience model, including use cases and interface design.
• This was done through interview, workshops, context
inquiry and focus groups. Development of a prototype and
usability analysis followed.
Impact
• Organization was able to successfully implement a web
strategy that aligned with the overall business strategy.
• Clear guidelines were created to drive future requirements.
• A sustainable process was put in place to support changing
environment.

Minimizing Residual Risk
Challenge
• Chaos in US financial markets lead to a financial crisis, forcing dramatic & rapid change. Enterprise Control
Functions were loosely organized & impacted by different regulators.
2
Solution
• In reaction to these forces, the organization had to rapidly
identify solutions and/or processes to cope with multiple
regulatory demands.
• Established a risk appetite and control strategy for the
organization that is clearly defined and actionable
• Empowered ownership with risk and control accountability
and management and leverage champions to expand
community awareness
• Data consumption, provisioning and ownership identified
• Strategic technology and supporting processes were put in
place to meet the requirements.
• A control framework with a centralized hub that links rules,
policies, procedures, processes and controls was
implement.
Compliance
Risk
management
Line of
Business
Quality Control/
Quality
Assurance
Audit
Impact
• Going beyond the technology and taking a holistic approach to operational risk was critical to creating a
sustainable Strong Risk Management program

Understanding Data Lineage
Challenge
• A large financial institution was dependent on third party vendors for clearing and servicing for their wealth
management business. The information was often delayed impacting a large part of the organization.
3
Solution
• Developed a comprehensive current state
analysis of the technology, people and processes
that existed between these large financial
organizations.
• Documented the feeds, the source systems, the
owners, the transformations and the
challenges/opportunities within the flow and
supporting files, data and quality.
• Identify the critical path for the data to key
business users in finance, risk, compliance and
compensation. Analyze report usage and
identify priorities and redundancies.
• Provide findings for SLA changes, appropriate
communications and initiatives.
Impact
• Financial institution was able to take findings and renegotiate the contract with the third party and
get more competitive SLAs that would meet business user requirements.

Managing Entitlements
Challenge
The existing environment had overly complex entitlements that were based upon severe technical limitations
and arcane definitions that were meaningless to both business and technical staff. There was significant over-
entitlement and poor quality of data and processes associated with mandatory entitlement reviews.
Additionally, lack of a risk based approach in the management of entitlements had resulted in n a single point
of failure.
Solution
Entitlement management program implemented:
• Targeted changes to the technical
environment to overcome limitations
• Clear definition of roles and entitlements of
those roles
• Simplification of those roles, profiles and IDs
so people managers understand entitlements
• Process enhancements to systematically
update, add and remove entitlements
Impact
Created a simpler risk based approach to handling
security handled across complex legacy
environments. Eliminated the single point of
failure
4
Business/User
Entitlement
Administration
Axis Project
Team
Profiles
Roles
IDs
Definitions&
Realignment
Processes&
Entitlement
Management
QualityAssurance
&Data Integrity
Interpret and
transform
Implements
Functional Knowledge

Aggregating Risk
Challenge
• Demonstrate to the regulators the aggregation and detail of
the company’s counterparty exposure within 24 hours of a
request.
Solution
• It was determined through a cost / benefit analysis and
review of the company’s maturity level, that they would not
be able to respond quickly to the required ad- hoc reporting
without creating a “fire drill” and risking incorrect data.
• Therefore a permanent daily solution was implemented that
would be able to meet future ad-hoc requests.
5
Impact
• The team pulled together company-wide detailed trade information across 7 Lines of Business, covering
20+ products from 50+ systems of record for daily processing.
• Data was not being consistently calculated or reported so common definitions needed to be established.
• Completeness, filter and field definitions were unique for this request, creating a new view of the data.
• 200+ people across the company implemented this solution separate from the main portfolio of projects
in 4 phases over 4 months while working hand-in-hand with audit.
• The solution was later integrated into the mainstream regulatory reporting.
• Issues impacting other regulatory requirements were identified as a byproduct of this effort and
remediated.

Implementing Data Governance
Challenge
• There was inconsistent regulatory and financial data being delivered across the company with questionable
sourcing and quality. This data was being used for high profile regulatory and financial reporting.
Solution
6
• The data governance structure was put in place with
accountability at all levels of the organization.
• Put in place policy that requires metadata to be
established and key data elements to be consistently
defined across systems.
• Identify approved provisioning points and technology
feeds that need to comply with provisioning architecture.
• Established standards (e.g., data quality) and measured
businesses using variance from the standard in a
dashboard.
• Created a central governing organization with line of
business liaisons that ensured ongoing support.
Impact
• Data management policy implemented across the fortune
500 financial institution.
• Guidelines enabled more effective merger / acquisitions.
Making consistent data available across the
business and providing guidelines and
standards on where to obtain it
Measuring and reporting against data
quality standards, performing root cause
analysis and remediation.
Maintaining standard system characteristics
and element definitions (data dictionary
mapped to common business language).
Ensuring impacted data is destroyed in
accordance with records retention schedule.
Communicating the status of compliance
with the policy.
Multi-generational plan for achieving
compliance with the policy.
Creating or utilizing structures and routines
to ensure policy compliance.
Policy Requirements

Creating an Advice and Planning Strategy
7
Challenge
A large financial company was trying to hone
their strategy for Advice and Planning and
develop an offering that appeals to existing
and prospective customers through a variety
of delivery channels.
Solution
• The team assessed the customer
landscape looking at service, and
relevance.
• Key demographic, customer capabilities
and required features were identified
based on the service requirements.
• Information was socialized and then
leveraged for process innovation and
product selection / design for these
customer offerings.
• Customer interactions were adapted to appeal to the different profiles.
Impact
• Advice and planning strategy was designed to appeal to the spectrum of customers in ways that were the
most effective.

Developing End State Vision
8
Challenge
A leading provider of private student
lending and securitization sought to
reassess their existing short- and
medium-term Strategic Plans - and two
stalled reenginnering efforts - in light of
a fuller understanding of their strategic
context.
Solution
• Defined the "Big Picture" of the
multi-Customer, Channel, and
Competitive Landscape in which
they operated.
• Highlighted the need for Customer Segmentation by value proposition to improve profitability, product and
channel offering targeting, and competitive position.
• Reenergized stalled Reengineering efforts by refocusing on strategic, prioritized needs of the business model
and technical architecture.
• Highlighted need for Scenario Analysis to proactively identify and address competitive threats, as well as
those posed by demographic, legal, regulatory, channel, and other trends.
Impact
• Integrated and comprehensive view of the strategic context informed the enterprise's End State Vision and
drove new focus for "in-flight" reengineering efforts.

Defining Global Customer Strategy
9
Challenge
The organization had a large
portion of their sales and
assets coming out of Asia,
but their technology and
operations still reflected a
North America-centric
approach. The team needed
to come to consensus on the
customer, their needs and
how to alter their existing
processes and technology to
support the change in
direction.
Solution
• Engage stakeholders in a series of Innovative Working Sessions to drive through understanding the customer,
building consensus on the global strategy and mapping the business model.
• Subsequent sessions focused on driving out the initiatives to support the global strategy, prioritizing, planning
and making a case for action.
Impact
• Changes were implemented across the value chain to impact more effective support for the Asian population
of portfolio managers, traders and customers.
Asia Pacific Markets Open (Apr 12)
US Time 5 AM7 PM
US Market Open (Apr 12)
Asia Pacific Next Day Starts (Apr 13) Asia Pacific Markets Open (Apr 13)
7 PM10 AM12 AM 9 AM 4 PM
US Market
Asia Pacific
Market
Asia Pacific
Trading
Corporate
Actions
US Day Starts (Apr 12)
12 AM
US Next Day
Starts (Apr 13)
Asia Pacific Trading & Confirmations (Apr 12) FX Trading (Apr 12)
Potential
Program Trading (Apr 12)
12 PM
Next Day Corp
Actions (Apr 13)
Available
Tokyo
Time 7 PM9AM 9 AM12 AM2 PM 11 PM 6 AM 2 PM2 AM
April 12th
April 13th
Potential
problem area

Provisioning a Portfolio of Projects
Challenge
As part of the goal to improve the
quality of the information that drove
decision making, a provisioning
strategy needed to be defined and
implemented.
Solution
• Build consensus around a data
provisioning strategy and
implement as part of the data
management accounting policies.
• Socialize the provisioning approach across all lines of business and functions.
• There was not an existing set of charters that include end to end responsibility for provisioning of data so the
team needed to assess the 117+ existing project charters for potential provisioning impact and then revise as
needed.
• Overall assumptions that maintaining existing provisioning capabilities will satisfy target requirements is
challenged by need to integrate new product and international data across LOB and enterprise systems
Impact
• Provisioning strategy, controls and supporting processes are now all an integral part of the operations.
• The transparency of the data lineage and quality of the data has improved due to increased accountability
and ownership.
115
17
29 55 Responsible
Accountable
Consult
Inform
None
10

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