Speaking at the Globes-J.P.Morgan Enterprise Technology Summit yesterday, J.P. Morgan managing director and global head of banking tech Chris Hundling said, "The fintech industry has a daily turnover of $6 trillion. That's $5.5 billion a minute. If your system crashes for two minutes, you lose $10 billion. These systems have to work every day and every minute; otherwise, people don't get paid salaries and don't eat, and businesses don't meet their obligations. This challenge of always being available is hard enough at ordinary times, but it becomes one of an enterprise's most difficult tasks when a new computer system replaces an old one."
Hundling stated that when a system is replaced, "You're embarking on a journey, and it's not an easy one. Success in the task depends on three variables: the process, the technology, and the people. If you don't balance everything, the transition won't succeed. Because of the characteristics of their culture, enterprises are usually inclined to emphasize one, or maybe two, of these aspects, but all three have to be taken into account to the same extent.
"For example, when you replace the technology, you have to take with you on the journey people who used the previous technology. Sometimes people are tempted to base their new world that we're aiming at exclusively on new people, but so many elements essential for the organization's activity are buried within the previous system that it's necessary, and indeed very critical for success, to bring the people who worked on the old system to design the new one. You can't compartmentalize.
"It's not easy, because sometimes the people involved have been working with the old technology for decades, and also because people often don't want to be disturbed. The managers in charge of those people therefore have to lead the change - to see, and show their employees, the future and the way it will have a good effect on them. We can't just have managers who want to keep things around them quiet. Managing people also means preparing them for the best possible work on the new system, with all of its capabilities. If we change the system, but not the work processes, we'll do the same thing we did before, but with a new system. We didn't invest so much money in order to do the same thing."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 4, 2019
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