Oops IT did it again

... a familiar tune? It better not be on your iPod. ...

Commerce Bank, a financial company known for a superior level of customer service, has experienced business impacts as information systems are integrated into its acquirer, TD Bank (Canada's Toronto-Dominion Bank), during the recent weekend conversion project. I may open up an account so I can get a copy of the lessons-learned report. ...

... "Customers can see account balances from the end-of-day yesterday, and will get updates later today, spokesman Nick Petter said in an e-mailed statement. " ...

Via Bloomberg: TD Bank Update on U.S. Accounts

Update: More details on the customer impact.

Platinum Projects Stay Funded

Credit Suisse CIO Karl Landert was recently appointed to the company's executive board and reports to the CEO. He shares insights into steering the IT ship using flexibility and agility in staffing, while ensuring that the highest priority / value projects in the portfolio remain properly funded. ...

... "By and large projects that are on our radar screen as prioritized -- or platinum projects, as we name them -- have not been affected. We have gone through the same process we go through every year, which is that the demand and appetite for new things is much higher than we are prepared to fund ... " ...

Via Wall Street & Technology: Credit Suisse CIO

Visualize the Crisis

Short vid on the credit crisis ...


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Brutal IT Strategy

Financial industry achieves competitive advantage through brutal IT strategy that "kills the competition and takes no prisoners". ...

... "The front office is conducting the war and IT is one of their assets to be deployed on the battlefield and make something work better, cheaper or across a wider geographic area. " ...

Via ComputerWeekly: Banking IT strategy

Project Benefits Realization with Compensation Escrow

There's no doubt that Wall Street risk, returns, and accountability got out of whack. Since most investments, whether IT or other, are founded on the principle of ROI, how about using this escrow account / variable compensation approach until project benefits are realized ? ...

... "One idea is creating escrow accounts at each firm made up of, say, one-third of each year’s allocated compensation, which would be distributed to employees over the next three years - after the account is reduced by losses resulting from poor trades or deals ... " ...

Via New York Times: Risk and Wall Street Reward

IT Investment in the Crunch

Financial firm is expected to increase its IT investment during the contraction in the credit market, which is a contrarian strategy. ...

... "The impact of the credit crunch on HSBC's accounts is unlikely to have a knock-on effect in the group's IT strategy ... " ...

Via UK Computing: HSBC

CIO Perspective on Business Strategy

Financial industry CIO makes pitch for getting intimate with their customers and making the right investments by IT. He offers an interesting observation, that many CIOs are in a position to look across lines of business for areas of synergy or leverage in order to better enable their businesses strategies. ...

... "I'm able to bring a unique perspective by working with many businesses across the company. Our perspective can be invaluable in helping our business leaders develop their long-term strategies. " ...

Via Info Week: Priority for Customer Intimacy

Interpreting Business Results

Tom provides interpretation of Bank of America CEO summary of quarterly results. ... Priceless. ... Read on. ...

... "We made total asses of ourselves, allowing ourselves to be conned by a bunch of out-of-touch Nobel-winning economists with their portfolio-risk smoothing models ... " ...

Via Tom Peters: Vile Bile

There are no IT projects

A business alignment success story, where there are only business projects enabled by technology. The CIO is ranked in the Computerworld Top 100. ...

... "Furthering the IT-as-strategic-partner culture at GMRC is the company's refusal to use the term IT project. " ...

Via TechWeb: Grinnell Mutual CIO Dennis Mehmen

Green IT Strategy Increasing

Financial firm sees IT's contribution to sustainability. ...

... "The bank is launching trials of new technology, benchmarking data centre energy consumption and reviewing the environmental credentials of its suppliers. " ...

Via VNUnet: Green Approach to Information Technology

Watch Your Breaches: Protect Laptops

Financial firms have some viable options for securing laptops from data breach / identity theft. ...

... "Maybe the data isn't worth the price of securing the computer, but for most financial services companies there are no excuses. The options for securing laptops are expanding and in many cases getting more practical for broader use. " ...

Via Wall Street & Technology: Laptop Threat

Financial Services IT Software Projects: Seeking an Edge

Financial firms are looking for methods to accelerate the delivery of their software projects. ...

... "Why so much interest? IT project management is an area many companies are weak in, says Forrester's Cullen. It's the No. 1 gap for all firms. " ...

Via Wall Street & Technology: Accelerate Software Delivery