Case Studies / Data

Defining a digital architecture for an established organisation

1+ million

Customers impacted

150

Systems to rationalise/update

Alirity was engaged to define a digital architecture for an established organisation.

We defined a future architecture that could engage future digital initiatives and mitigate core risks for an established financial services organisation.

The client needed ideas on how to modernise their IT platform to make it more flexible and resilient. Alirity came in to advise the leadership team during the planning stage of the project.

Our client’s legacy technology was having a domino effect on the organisation’s ability to innovate effectively.

Their Head of Transformation said,
“We were finding change difficult to implement because all our systems were integrated into the core banking platform. When we set out on change projects, it meant change was slow – and often more problematic than we’d first envisaged.”

Because their IT systems fed back to a central core, this meant that each technological change created risk upstream and downstream.

“It was having a knock-on effect with customers because we were very paper-based. Processes weren’t as slick as they could be in the modern digital age.”

The client had resigned themselves to a large-scale investment in a new IT platform. However, Alirity had a better idea. Rather than replacing the entire system, we suggested a more modular architecture to allow processes to run at mid-tier level, safely away from the core banking platform.

“Alirity gained a deep understanding of the business really quickly. It was very collegiate, a very one-team approach. It wasn’t about Alirity coming in and saying `Here’s the solution you need to go with’. They worked as part of the team.

“Alirity helped us understand that our current banking platform can be adapted rather than going out into the market and looking for a new one. That was unexpected.

“By simply changing and modernising our architecture it will be a more cost-effective, less risky change for our business to go through. Without their help on that, we probably wouldn’t have got there.”

Two months on from the consultation process, the leadership team saw their IT capabilities as a key component of their customer-centred business principle.

“Alirity has helped us take a more service-oriented view of our IT architecture. The infrastructure we’re now putting in place, that Alirity helped us design, will very much improve customer journeys. It’s less reliant on print and manual processes.”

As their Head of Transformation points out, technological innovation is more than just changing IT capabilities…
“It’s also how we support those areas as a business – uplifting our capabilities to make sure we’re set up for the future.”

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