IT is a critical service to insurance and financial firms

IT service management (ITSM) software solutions can help to mitigate risk in change and IT infrastructure management says Michael Scheib.

CIO’s of financial services and insurance firms must balance multiple objectives: maximise return, mitigate risk, improve performance and increase agility. These objectives need to be accomplished in the midst of an unparalleled and often unpredictable amount of change. iET Solutions’ experience in this industry is reflected in the significant adoption of its ITSM solution presence in banks, stock exchanges, and insurance carriers worldwide such as ING Bank, SwissRe and DABbank. With the power of its portfolio and its deep industry knowledge, the company helps financial institutions and insurance carriers reduce IT cost and, at the same time, build an efficient, agile IT resource for the future.

Improve service delivery and address compliance requirements

To maintain a competitive edge, IT organisations must continually improve the services they deliver to the business. It is critical to automate the dynamic link between business and IT by giving the management the insight required to measure, assess and control the business. In doing so companies can reduce cost, increase staff efficiency , improve service delivery and address compliance requirements. IT organisations are often asked to implement changes to address the company’s shifting business priorities. If not implemented correctly, however, these changes can cause major disruptions to business operations.

Increasingly stringent regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and Basel II, and the need to improve productivity, are a few of the factors that make companies completely reliant on the performance of IT. SOX and other regulations require documented controls and processes for the IT as it relates to the financial reporting system and, where IT assets are material to financial statements, for those assets themselves.

The Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which defines the auditing requirements for SOX compliance, has specified the following required controls for IT infrastructure and applications: 1) IT asset management; 2) change management; 3) security administration; 4) data management and disaster recovery; and 5) problem management. IT asset management, important in its own right, also lies at the core of each of the other areas. Change management requires accurate data regarding the current state of the infrastructure and a reliable method for detecting unauthorized changes. Security administration depends on the ability to promptly detect weaknesses in the infrastructure. Efficiently correcting IT problems requires reliable, detailed information on the service infrastructure in order to quickly identify root causes.

As business processes continue to be driven by IT systems, the risk rises of bringing operations to a crashing halt because of IT problems. iET Solutions change and IT infrastructure management solutions deliver automated tools and best practices to help design, implement and continually improve the processes that control and manage changes within the IT environment. Our solutions include the key areas of software transition and release management, as well as the essential installation, configuration, implementation and training services associated with any IT project.

IT Service Management at DABbank

In Germany and Austria, the DAB bank AG (www.dab-bank.com) serves personal savings account holders, investors and traders. When this Munich-based institute was founded in 1994, it started with approximately 10,000 customers; today it manages more than €32billion customer assets for more than 1,085,324 securities accounts.

The bank implemented a process structure based on ITIL to increase its service quality, and achieved a noticeable improvement of quality after only 12 weeks. ITIL is a set of best practices for IT service management. It provides businesses with a customisable framework of best practices to achieve quality service and overcome difficulties associated with the growth of IT systems.

The main goals of DABbank’s IT Service Management initiative included:

• Streamlining of IT-processes.
• Defin ing of interfaces between IT and business.
• Allowing measurability of processes.
• Monitoring of service level agreements.

 “We have what I would call a living process where we quickly and easily make small adjustments to our IT Service Management solutions on a weekly basis,” says Marcel Comans, Manager of IT Service & Support at DABbank, describing his experience. Since alignment with the sales department’s business goals has the highest priority, the ability to be flexible and react quickly is imperative .

The project has paid off for the DAB bank. “What ITIL promised, has actually been delivered,” Comans notes. At the DAB bank, it is obvious that the IT systems strongly support the bank’s strategies. With leading applications and new processes, the bank is well prepared and the bankers see further growth coming their way.

For a copy of the complete customer success story and for further information please visit www.iet-solutions.com/financials.

Michael Scheib has more than 20 years of experience in IT technology management. He has held senior VP and management positions at NIKU, Applix, and Parametric Technology. As President and CEO of iET Solutions, he is directing the company's continued development of enterprise ITSM solutions built around ITIL, which were first introduced in 1997.