Euromoney PLC World Leasing Yearbook 2014 | Page 2

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

important processes and products, the
key pain points and biggest aspirations
should be covered. Subsequently, one or
two vendors can be taken through due
diligence and a final selection can be
made.
Defining the right project. Planning your
project effectively and producing a
detailed, meaningful project definition
report provides a valuable head start in
achieving the objectives. A series of
intensive workshops and interviews, run
in unison with your implementation
partner or software vendor, usually represents the most valuable part of this.
It is important not to become too concerned with the detail of any project
management methodology, and instead
look to be pragmatic, adapting the
approach to suit the nature and culture
of your business. The benefits of a clear
communication strategy – that spells out
the reasons for the change, augmented
with who is responsible, what is required
from the business, and when the definition will be completed – are many.
When performing systems gap analysis, it is important that each gap can be
traced back to your requirements. An
early review of the stated requirements
will flush out ‘blue sky’ or other nonessential requests, so your technical
architecture, migration, interfaces and
integration activities will run more
smoothly planned in advance.
Dividing the project into multiple
deliveries can make it more manageable.
Overly aggressive delivery dates will
inevitably slip, so try to incorporate
some contingency in case of change or
unforeseen events.
The completed Report will have a
broad readership. To maintain project
momentum, consider beginning some
activities immediately, such as interfaces
to other systems, migration or training.
Deploying future-proof technology. To
make use of the many technological

improvements we see each day, it is vital
to understand where your business is
going, separate the key concerns, and
ensure your technology is in line with
your software.
If you are embarking on a large software implementation, it is important
that your technical choices are informed
not directly by the technology itself, but
by the business benefit you are looking
to derive from the project. Look to use
technology that is proven in both a technical and business context. Usually
where future-proof, ‘good’ technology is
concerned, industry standards are
adhered to, systems are componentbased, and there is a service-oriented
architecture.
To minimise integration risk, many
stress the importance of service-oriented
architectures and message-oriented middleware. In general, the larger implementations are most successful when an
enterprise service bus (ESB) architecture
is deployed.
Those choosing a package solution
also need to consider what level of
involvement the in-house IT team will
have; since they are likely to know how
the business works from the inside, they
are likely to be most useful in a development capacity, for report writing, integration, migration and so on.
Any system must satisfy your organisation’s performance requirements and
be able to scale without creating bottlenecks as requirements change over time.
Enterprise solutions usually incorporate
redundancy at technical tiers – web,
database servers and so on. Meanwhile,
software application security is increasingly important, especially where data
access is concerned.
Increasing developments in cloud
technology mean that a third partyhosted approach, bolstered by supplier
support services, potentially offers the
best hosting solution overall. In this way,

the finance company is allowed to focus
on what it does best and not waste
resources on system support.
Making business change happen. One of
the great benefits that your new software
should enable is a transformation of
your business processes.
Typically, companies operating old
legacy platforms will have myriad
manual processes, spreadsheets, paper
files and phone or email notifications
between users. Despite the very best
intentions of the users, these old manual
processes can often be the reason for
slow, inefficient and error-prone customer service. It is not unusual for there
to be only a few people in the business
who really know how some process
operates, let alone how to unpick and
reengineer it, yet gaining maximum benefit from your new platform’s automated
workflow and efficiency will be a key
component of the business case.
So how do you make the change
happen? Of course, every business is different, and a truly useful explanation
always requires extensive exploration,
but there might be some pointers worth
noting.
Having the right team engaged is the
starting point. It is invaluable to have a
combination of deep expertise in the current processes and the underlying business need, process design knowledge,
and understanding of the workflow
capabilities of the new software. The
team should be able to define and articulate a vision of how the business will
operate and change as the project progresses to completion.
Initially, look to have your team focus
on the core business requirement and the
activities critical to the quality of the
process. Getting a clear view of priorities
ensures that the needs of the customer
are foremost in the design process. Only
once requirements and priorities are
clearly understood should you start

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