A very large global, full-service financial firm, providing brokerage, investment banking and asset management services to corporations, governments and individuals around the world. The core services include sales, research and trading for individuals and institutions, underwriting, advisory and specialty financing for corporations and government entities, mutual fund services and asset management.

The Challenge:

The firm's two legacy systems developed almost ten years ago faced difficulties such as:

	old documentation that did not cover the modifications carried out over the years
	business processes that had not been defined and documented with reference to the systems
	full ramifications of the systems and the extent of their utilization not known to those currently responsible for the software
	scalability issues making it difficult to increase business from these systems

The challenge lay in turning around these difficulties and enabling integration of processes and improved functionality. The task was complicated by the fact that the business processes were split into minute tasks spread across myriad users, with additional upstream and downstream tasks in the business cycle coming to light only after each interview.

Recommended Solution:

The system functionality, the numerous interfaces with other systems, business processes, and the connected system utilization were documented in great detail. The study also discussed the relative merits of the alternatives for continuing the business processes after decommissioning existing systems.

Customer Benefits:

The customer is equipped with exhaustive documentation in the areas of detailed business process mapping, system functionality, interface details, merits of the decommissioning proposal, and analysis of the alternatives for migration to other systems. This study could serve as a powerful tool for strategic decisions towards technology solutions for the foreign exchange business.