By Icon Solutions ·
The challenge
The client is a Tier 1 Global Bank maintaining a strong presence in markets across Asia, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East. Icon partnered directly with the client's Group Architecture team, which is central to governing and shaping strategy across Global Business functions.
The client needed to overhaul their Technology Reference Model (TRM), which was not satisfying its fundamental requirement: to provide a bank-wide overview of all technology use and associated standard patterns (spanning infrastructure, data platforms, integration, and application logic). As well as deep-seated functional issues with the TRM itself, there were also other issues:
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Downstream processes, which would usually consume the data describing technology architecture from the TRM, were unable to be integrated appropriately
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The incumbent vendor solution for the TRM was not fit for purpose, and carried significant licensing costs
The scope of the engagement was to:
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Clarify and confirm the requirements for the TRM (and associated components) to remove duplication and overlap
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Consider available models and solutions for managing technology usage and lifecycle, and recommend a target solution for the TRM
The new TRM needed to provide a technology capability view compatible with the requirements of the bank’s Future State Architectures initiative, and to act as a trusted, complete, up-to-date architecture data catalogue for technologies and their usage across the bank. Additionally, the TRM was required to facilitate governance and compliance processes by direct integration to architecture workflows and automated report generation.
The approach
Icon established and ran a series of working groups across the enterprise to aggregate, process and confirm the bank-wide requirements for the TRM and its associated processes. The resulting set of requirements, aligning with industry-standard TRM capabilities, was then assessed against the current enterprise landscape to identify gaps and areas of duplication. Where critical dependencies existed, Icon provided targeted advice to remove roadblocks and ensure alignment with related initiatives.
Icon also analysed the existing proprietary data model, which was reverse-engineered and aligned with the confirmed TRM requirements, and a new schema designed. This provided insight into estimated API data payloads, enabling downstream data consumer teams to complete their own impact assessments.
An impact assessment was carried out for migrating off the existing TRM vendor solution, which highlighted ongoing integration issues between the existing TRM solution and the client’s Operational Data Store, as well as hidden dependencies.
The shortlist of three candidate models and solutions was subjected to an in-depth requirements analysis, with a final recommendation paper providing a summary of the results, along with a plan for implementation.
Solutions and benefits
Icon supported the project delivery for the new TRM solution, alongside the client’s own solution architect and project team. As an overall result, the programme of work delivered the following key Architecture benefits:
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For the first time: definitive, documented TRM requirements, sourced from the full scope of personas across the bank, categorised by industry-aligned TRM capability definitions
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The delivery of an associated common taxonomy for Application and Technology layer concepts, that can be used in the Future State Architectures and ultimately embedded within the new TRM
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An enhanced, parallel Business Capability Model that can support the CTO Technology business, enabling the production of application roadmaps with their Future State Architectures
The improvements in Architecture processes and tools led to the following business benefits:
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The ability to measure governance and compliance more effectively, based on improved data quality within the TRM, and the resolution of problems with its integration to downstream data consumers, including monitoring and reporting systems
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A stronger business understanding of the enterprise technology landscape, providing a view of where decisions need to be made to remove duplication, simplify and standardise
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A formal exit plan was created and agreed with the incumbent vendor, removing vendor lock-in and the associated licensing spend of £250k per annum
Icon transformed an unreliable TRM into a strategic control mechanism, enabling consistent governance, reducing risk, and providing the foundation for informed investment and decision-making across the bank’s technology estate.”
