Dear {FIRST_NAME} {LAST_NAME}, 

This is an interactive and last Omni-Connect monthly newsletter for calendar year 2009 brought to you by Omnitech InfoSolutions.We would also welcome your inputs as comments and suggestions to make this newsletter more informative and useful for you.

As we cherish the good memories of working with you and wish for more such memories for the coming years, we wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Best Regards
Ayan Mitra - Head of Marketing - Omnitech InfoSolutions Ltd.

KEYWORD DRIVEN FRAMEWORK CASE STUDY-
For a leading software solutions company 

The client is a major provider of software solutions in the Banking and Financial
sector in Europe and North American region, providing niche solutions
in payments automation.

Click here to download case study (Pdf)

MQ SERVER ADMINISTRATION CASE STUDY
For a leading Global Investment Bank 

The client is one of the leading global investment bank with a strong and profitable private clients franchise. A leader in Germany and Europe, the Bank is continuously growing in North America, Asia and key emerging markets.

It is a fully integrated financial services provider to Indian corporate, institutional and individual clients.

Click here to download case study (Pdf)

 BFSI Industry Trends

Regulatory Challenges & Opportunities with Banking Technology in Asia

The success of business process outsourcing (BPO) is a story familiar to everyone.  The next emerging trend is remote hosting of IT services.  Significant improvements in hardware and software technologies coupled with declining network costs will see this trend become more and more main stream.  The economics of consolidating infrastructure including data centre, application services are well documented.  Banks in ever their continuous drive to decrease costs will to adopt these technologies to reap the promised benefits. 

With consolidation, however, come increase concentration risks.  Local regulators are cognizant of these risks and many in Asia have instituted different compliance regimes in response.  The less enlighten of regulators, however, remained steadfast in their approach.  Bank Negara Malaysia, for instance, since early days has stipulated that all banks operating in the country run their IT application services from within its borders.  Recently regulators in Indonesia and China have followed suit. 

Needless to say the impact for banks, reliant on head office to deliver application services remotely, should not be underestimated.  For recent market entrants, operating with limited operational as well as product presence, the costs of localizing application services can be onerous and potentially game changing.  How does the increased cost base affect the medium to long term economics of its business?  Even for banks with deep pockets the costs and challenges of compliance can be very daunting.

How do TSPs structure their product offerings into the unmistakable value propositions?  Managed service is one such option.  The plan: offer IT services as a managed service encompassing end-to-end technology services ranging from: system implementation to application support; service desk to desk side support; infrastructure hosting to service management; and data network to voice services.

By offering a well integrated and seamless infrastructure service a TSP enables the customer not only to streamline its operations, increase its productivity, reduce business downtime but also provides the customer with the scale and agility to exploit market opportunities as these arise.

Technology Trends

Time to Build Support for Tough Decisions 

Source: Channel World 

Over the past couple of years, IT managers have been forced to make a lot of tough decisions. Budget cuts, layoffs and project cancellations have became commonplace occurrences. But just because we may be seeing the beginning of an economic recovery, doesn’t mean we’re at the end of the era of hard choices. In my experience, IT investment isn’t recovered until a year or more after the business starts to improve. Budget cycles and managerial caution intervene to slow improvements in the IT workplace.

What will return to your IT shop more quickly than your budget and head count, is the belief among the staff that decision-making can go back to normal. During emergency situations like the economic meltdown, decisions have to be made hurriedly, without a lot of consultation. Now, with things looking better, managers should have more time to contemplate their choices and build support for decisions.

Perhaps, though, you’ve gotten a little too used to being able to make choices and impose your will in a dictatorial, emergency-driven style. It might have felt a little heady in the midst of crisis to have your people look to you for decisive plans and instruction. You shouldn’t get too comfortable with that feeling.

The support from the staff that managers have enjoyed recently, can, and probably will, evaporate just as quickly as it materialized.

So, before you face a full-scale rebellion, this may be a good time to start thinking more carefully about building support for decisions, which just a few months ago, you were able to promulgate by fiat. The most important thing to remember about the support is that it arises more from emotion than from reason. Even if you can present a tightly reasoned argument about why your decision is good and why the staff should follow you, it may not be what you need in order to sway them. You will have to pay attention to your staff’s feelings about several things.

Self Interest
Clearly, people are most interested in how a decision affects them personally. If they feel that a decision will be good for the group but bad for them, they may resist. And resistance brought on by self-interest could be compounded if people feel that during the economic crisis, they have had to accept things not in their short-term interest. If they suffered pay cuts, were forced to work more hours, or got stuck doing distasteful work because the staff was thinner, they may be looking for payback now that things are getting better. Though self-interest trumps group interest, people also care about the effect a decision will have on the group. Not many are willing to subordinate their own self-interest to the good of the overall group. But most people most of the time are going to want to see both a group and an individual payoff.

Fair Process
In most cases, it is easier to build support for a decision, as it is being made together rather than just being handed down as a fact. When it comes to especially difficult decisions, everyone knows that there will be winners and losers–that’s why the decision is difficult. But those who are among the losers will have a much easier time accepting the decision if they feel that their case was heard and everyone’s perspective was represented during the deliberation. If they lose fair and square, they are more likely to support the outcome, even if they don’t like it.

So remember that your days of just telling people what to do are numbered and that you need to build support if you want your orders to be transformed into action. And getting support during good times is much harder than it is in times of crisis.