Has your business had its operational and IT health check?In today’s health conscious society we are all focused on eating low fat, zero carb and sugar free diets; maybe now it’s time to extend this focus to the health and wellbeing of our operational and IT environments?
Running inefficient IT and operational environments will increase business risk and reduce your service delivery capabilities. Unless configured and deployed correctly, even the most functionally rich IT solution can fail to meet expectations and leave your stakeholders and customers wanting. Employing the right mix of technology and operational strategy for an organisation can equate to significant efficiencies that ultimately provide your clients with better service at a lower cost to your business.
Best practice for wealth management organisations is to perform a periodic evaluation of your current IT infrastructure, deployment models and operational processes. It is important to review system configuration at both a tactical and strategic level to ensure that your business is optimising all that is available within its IT platform. The key word here is periodic – leaving it too long can mean far greater work in the long run.
To use the personal health analogy again, we all know that we need to eat well, exercise regularly and undergo health checks to achieve optimal physical performance. The philosophy is similar for your operational and IT environment; in addition to day-to-day upkeep and maintenance, your organisation should undergo a thorough evaluation every 12 months.
Wealth management organisations should look at how well they perform against benchmarks for service and operational capacity, efficiency, change management and transparency. Missing the mark in any one of these areas can impact an organisation’s overall effectiveness and reputation in the market.
Engaging with a consultant to conduct the review will also ensure that you are receiving best practice advice and have access to people that are dedicated to achieving results that aren’t caught up in managing the day to day ‘noise’ of the business.
From the outset of a review, the objectives must be established and made clear to those involved. Typical objectives that will lead to success are optimisation of IT hardware and software, and operational efficiency via straight through processing, reduced manual processes, and bottleneck management. Once your organisation has conducted the review, you can focus on delivering a set of realistic and quantifiable objectives for implementation. Ultimately, your organisation could realise improved operating margins, value-added client service and reduced operational risk.
When did your organisation last conduct an IT and operational health check?
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