More than five years since its initial deployment, Post Vision Technology's Project Portfolio Office (PPO) has proven to be an indispensable project management tool at one of South Africa's major financial services institutions, First National Bank (FNB).
Primarily deployed to govern a major financial re-engineering project, PPO has subsequently bolstered its role at FNB to become a tool-of-choice and an integral component in assisting the financial services institution's project management requirements in numerous business areas at both national and African level.
The solution recently demonstrated its sophisticated technology and ease of functionality at FNB's Online banking business, a Web-based electronic banking solution that offers its clients the benefit of direct, secure and real-time electronic access to FNB accounts, as well as the opportunity to manage finances anytime, anywhere.
According to Peter Green, programme and project management executive at Intuate Group, a PPO implementation partner company, the tool's feature set comprehensively addressed the bank's requirements regarding portfolio and project management processes as well as reporting, which included the ability to centrally manage the bank's project methodology and life cycles.
“FNB Online needed to centralise, consolidate and manage all project processes, life cycles and data and project management functions, such as financial, resource and risk management, through the deployment of one comprehensive but straightforward solution,” he says. “The bank also wanted to improve its reporting environment through the automation of its reporting system, which would be realised through the gathering of high quality, transparent and comprehensive data.
“Additionally, the bank intended, by means of this deployment, to improve the capabilities of its project managers, through training, mentorship and performance management, while smoothing and clarifying internal processes and providing these teams with effective toolsets as part of its transition to a new online environment.
“PPO came through for FNB Online on all fronts and has addressed all of these requirements and more.”
Guy Jelley, CEO at Post Vision Technology, says FNB Online selected PPO due to the ease of use, extensive functionality and value for money proposition - as demonstrated in past PPO deployments at FNB.
“The tool has confirmed its ability to meet the current and future requirements of the project management team, making it an ideal choice for the multifaceted bank. Furthermore, PPO was able to demonstrate the integration capabilities inherent to the PPO solution, as FNB Online is still able to use a competitive project management solution for the scheduling of its Web-based applications and PPO integrates easily with the bank's document management solution,” says Jelley.
FNB, he adds, has also realised PPO's comprehensive process management capabilities and is currently considering extending its use of the solution to achieve unified, consolidated and centralised portfolio and project management across FNB Online.
As part of PPO's strategy to expand into Africa, Post Vision Technology took on the responsibility to deploy PPO at FNB Botswana. Says Jelley: “Over the past decade and longer, Africa has undergone a tremendous transformation, which has resulted in a large amount of growth and development in its socio-economic and political landscape. This change has also opened the business conduits for companies, especially those within the telecommunication and financial services sectors, wanting to operate in Africa and be part of the vast opportunities the continent and its emerging economy offers.”
He says that a distinct benefit for Post Vision Technology's expansion into Africa is that PPO is a Web-based, enterprise capable application that is designed, developed and supported in South Africa, therefore, dependency on third party suppliers is eliminated, ensuring real-time connectivity, reliability and support to African users.
“To date, our African-client base in the financial arena has grown. We have observed that this growth is mainly owing to the fact that PPO allows all African data to remain on the continent and our sophisticated software makes interactive communication with end users - including remote training and support - simple and effective,” says Jelley.
Chief information officer at FNB Botswana, Lehuka Maseng, oversaw the deployment and says that the project management team found an ideal fit in PPO. The solution also turned out to play a large role in the creation of FNB Botswana's new business model, which had been designed to enhance customer service in the region.
Says Maseng: “As part of our evolutionary plans, we sought a solution that would provide us with a common dashboard that would smooth prioritisation and resource allocation processes. At the same time, we required a solution that would enable us to easily determine capacity constraints and provide us with governance through budgetary approvals and ownership authorisation.”
According to Jelley, FNB Botswana's entire organisation, including its profit centres and support infrastructure, would be using the product - making the tool's effortless deployment and user friendliness crucial.
As Maseng says: “PPO's ease of use and low price point, along with its reputation, made the decision a simple one.”
“The strength of PPO as project management tool speaks for itself. We do, however, feel privileged that the tool is receiving such positive feedback and is being utilised fully within FNB. It's a business relationship we hope to grow further,” concludes Jelley.
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