As banking and financial institutions strive to simplify business processes and unify their multi-branch, multi-office and multi-business systems, the concept of centrally managed voice and data services is making more economic sense, but is technically challenging.
There is a general acceptance that the finance sector requires the latest enterprise features, including unified communications (UC). Inter-business unit collaboration brings the prospect of improved operational efficiency whilst enhancing system performance to enrich the constituent experience. But disparate networks require large amounts of systems integration to deliver company wide UC benefits.
Financial institutions are looking to access a full suite of UC services, but still operate with the economic and operational advantages of a centrally controlled infrastructure. Bank CIOs want the cost benefits of a central platform, but division IT managers do not want to give up the independence of operating their own administration.
Many large financial institutions are also considering outsourcing to an internal service provider, or a 3rd party, and this brings its own challenges with regards to delivering best-in-class UC services.
The challenges that financial institutions are facing, include:
- Management of diverse and independent business groups, each with their own specific needs - one size does not fit all
- Large numbers of branches, spread across the multiple regions
- Consolidation of multi-generational platforms
- Multiple vendors, disparate legacy systems
- Making cost savings by sharing a centralized infrastructure, but maintaining autonomy for individual departmental administrators
- Ensuring service continuity
- Effective management of disaster situations
- Ability to scale and integrate new acquisitions
- Providing a platform to efficiently deliver new UC applications