Credit management services group Real People last year deployed a collaborative programming and development mission - which spanned 12 weeks - to ensure an optimum competitive edge for the business's systems, to coincide with the entr'ee of the historical new National Credit Act (NCA).
This approach, says Real People's Chief Information Officer (CIO) Morn'e Owen, is paying dividends and has delivered significant advantages for Real People in 2008, as the NCA regime settles in.
The NCA governs and regulates anew the interests of South Africans, who owe some R850 billion to a variety of credit providers. Last year financial services companies in South Africa spent billions in ensuring systems compliance to the NCA's new standards.
Real People has over 1 300 employees and one of the largest in-house IT development teams in the Eastern Cape.
Says Owen: "We adopted a focused 12-week programme, which sought to align business and IS strategy, to deliver a world-class origination solution through a single programme. The 12 weeks-to-world class programme was resourced by a dedicated, focused team comprising both business and IS employees. We deployed three IS teams, moving much of our development and analyst resources onto the 12 week project, which we viewed as a critical enabler. We saw the arrival of the NCA, in fact, as providing us with a unique window of opportunity."
Factors which ensured the project's success, reckons Owen, included: executive commitment to the project charter; ongoing monitoring of progress to plans; inclusion of the audit team in the life cycle of the programme - and extreme programming and iterative development techniques.
"Our teams worked around the clock - it was a huge effort and an IT gig to be recalled for a long time by all. Now, a few months into the NCA regime and 2008, we see our confidence in this concentrated, collaborative approach paying off," says Owen.
The Real People 12-week project, in its communication styles, adopted a thematic approach with planets and space missions utilised as part of the branding of the project. The accomplishments for each week of the 12 were communicated to all stakeholders and staff, ensuring ongoing interest, awareness and support across the business group.
Real People's 12-week project concentrated on three separate but related areas, serving Real People's 130 branches across Southern Africa:
* Cash management and near real-time disbursement.
* Branch origination with integrated scoring models.
* Merchant funding (wholesale) - credit applications processed by an ICR system.
Significant elements, says Owen, within these projects included:
* Recreation of Real People's vetting environment using a workflow solution: to bring cycle and touch times down considerably, which ultimately lowers the cost per application.
* Allowing our merchants (wholesale) to use their existing fax or e-mail technology to complete application forms and to provide the necessary documents required for scoring and vetting.
* Extreme programming and iterative development techniques allowed for rapid application development greatly reducing the time-to-market. Project management ensured that solutions were delivered on time and within budget.
"We customised the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) to give us an agile SDLC to meet our business needs and implemented the process using Microsoft's Team Foundation Server," notes Owen.
"We believe that the 12-week programme displayed how true collaboration between IS and business interests can ensure deliverables and enhance the efficiency of a group. The relationship between business and IS should be fostered and expectations should be managed and measured throughout the duration of a programme to ensure systems are delivered that solves business problems," comments Owen.
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