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The
business we are into is entirely based on trust. Customers repose a lot of faith
in their bank. While there is enough protection afforded to their money, they
are also sensitive to data about themselves, which the bank can share with other
entities. In fact banking laws place a lot of emphasis on how we should protect
customer's data. Since we are responsible for the consequences of any breach,
most of the core activities regarding system support are performed in-house and
by the bank's own employees.
On the issue of
in-house maintenance, 'out-tasking' is a reasonable way of managing support
for infrastructure ie telecommunications, LAN, WAN and hardware maintenance.
This means that we own all the assets but their upkeep is done by an outside
agency under our supervision. While we are responsible for the availability and
provisioning of various services, a team of technicians of another company does
the actual job. As for the front-line support for the core banking applications
and satellite systems that run in the bank, a team of in-house personnel manages
this. Apart from the technology support, there is a team that interfaces with
the business and operations groups to identify, specify and test automation
solutions for productivity and customer convenience. There is yet another team
that manages the data center activities relating to all the systems running in
the bank.
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CN Ram
head-IT, HDFC Bank |
The major challenge
about outsourcing is one of acceptance-how do you reassure yourself and the
other interested parties within the organization that they will perform their
duties as diligently as a bank staff would.
One of the other challenges is the effectiveness of a governance
mechanism-in order for outsourcing to work, there has to be a complete
reliance on the spirit and not the letter of the agreement in terms of service
levels, responsibilities etc. It is not possible to specify every item clearly
at the time of signing a legal document.
In a transition, where
current staff is being moved to the outsourcing agency, there is a likelihood of
attrition. The period leading to the transition is also one where staff
disturbance and anxiety about jobs is likely to be at its peak. Where
outsourcing is being done for cost reasons, it is not always possible to measure
cost savings accurately. How do you measure the effectiveness of outsourcing?
One of the reasons why
we do not believe in outsourcing is that a lot depends on the outsourcing
agency. The expertise they bring on to the job, the satisfaction levels of other
customers using their services, the ability for them to convince us about their
partnership for the long term et al. It is our belief that technology should be
for operational excellence and for customer convenience.
We must be able to make
the most appropriate choice to achieve these goals and not be constrained only
to use the technology and solutions that are part of the outsourcing agency's
menu. Employee morale and regulatory compliance are other important reasons.
As for the
infrastructure that we have setup, the technology and back-office operations
function in a centralized manner. All branches communicate to the central system
via telecommunication links. All branch users access systems on PCs and operate
a corporate email system also.
As told to Minu Sirsalewala
minuvs@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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