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A Central Nervous System
Just before Connery arrived at Envision, the credit union had implemented a new core application: Fincentric's Wealthview Banking system (the vendor has since been acquired by Open Solutions). The new system replaced multiple legacy systems with a single platform.
Through its XML-based gateways, the system integrated views of data pulled from customer relationship management, data warehousing, collections and credit recovery and business intelligence systems. For the first time, the credit union was able to get a unified view of its customers: deposits, payments, borrowing. An online transaction-processing engine designed for high performance and high availability let the credit union analyze the value of each customer, formulate strategies to maximize their value and increase retention.
Connery says the Envision deployment was a boon operationally, significantly improving workflow and customer service. So much so that even while Connery was blending two IT departments, he found himself launching a two-year conversion project to put the Alberta credit union on the same platform, an important part of the shared services model.
Connery created a core team of 35 staff members from both Langley and Calgary to work on the project. And the company was able to cut a deal with the vendor to bring the cost down by 24% over the life of the contract by combining license fees for the two organizations.
On a Friday in November 2006, Connery flipped the switch on the new system. Everything was running in test mode by Saturday night; IT ran audits, balances and integrity checks Sunday and Monday. The system went live on ATM, debit card and credit card transactions on Sunday and fully live to customers on Tuesday.
"This was a big deal in that in the process we changed account structures to be member-centric versus account-centric; this meant changing account numbers, checks, debit cards and Web banking platforms," Connery says. "Having done at least a half-dozen large conversions in my past, [I can say] this was one of the smoothest. Thousands of moving parts, 100 different systems, 20 different suppliers and 100,000 members to manage and it all went off according to the plan."
But even with a tangle of legacy banking systems eliminated, Connery says the two institutions are still running too many apps: 250, to be specific. "We need to pare down," he says. "I'd like to get that down to 60 to 70 apps. We have a lot of little systems added piecemeal. We're moving to an enterprise architecture strategy." That includes looking at an ERP system to replace 12 different financial and HR apps.
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