SOFE 2008 – What keeps CIOs awake at night?
Inspirational operations forum with 11 keynote speakers. Operational excellence, innovation and collaboration at the heart of the discussions.
Published on 26 January 2009
The SWIFT Operations Forum Europe took place in La Hulpe, from 8 to 10 December. This year’s forum focused on risk management, operational efficiency and mitigation of residual operational risk in line with business requirements for high availability at acceptable costs. The economical and operational realities were reflected through the event and debated amongst the 280 delegates and partners present. As the global financial crisis deepened, SOFE participants were keener than ever to meet, to network and to debate around what keeps them and their CIOs awake at night.
Michael Studen, Deutsche bank: ‘SWIFT is really listening to its customers. Over the last two years Deutsche Bank has noticed a major difference. SOFE is much more IT and Operational and this is exactly what we are looking for.”
Setting the scene for the conference, Marc Braet, co-host of the event with Peter De Metsenaere, raised the criticality of excellence in operational risk management, the importance of efficient processing, the value of people and the need for continuous improvement. The importance of collaboration is key to share best practices and stimulate creative ideas and go beyond the SWIFT community. To that end, Richard Cross, Corporate Risk Officer, Toyota Motor provided insights from the perspective of the automotive industry on what keeps CIOs awake at night.
Dealing with invisible risks
Richard Cross, Corporate Risk Officer, Toyota Motor
Richard provided the Toyota viewpoint that according to the enthusiasm of the audience, can stimulate creative reflection for the financial industry. Richard explained that he sees two types of business supported by CIOs. The first ones are the big operational processes, well defined, actively managed and although they are very lean, it would be understandable to think the CIO is worried about these things going wrong. But the nature of these systems is that they are highly monitored and the CIO can trust his team in these areas. The other type of business is irregular. It is the smaller details that are left to individuals or that constantly change.
The reality is, the CIO worries about things he can not see, the invisible risks. The dark corners of the business where unexpected things take place. Toyota is dealing with the invisible through a unique working environment base on a culture of doing things called the Toyota way, a system of production using lean principles and a 8 step problem solving approach that ensures a harmonious and effective action. “ This is where people can make the difference.
Michael Shipton, Managing Director, Head of Corporate Technology at Euroclear S.A
We reward people that bring attention to issues so that the team can gather around and sort them quickly before they may get bigger or affect the customer”.
The second key note speaker in the opening plenary session, Michael Shipton, Managing Director, Head of Corporate Technology at Euroclear S.A., talked about market change that definitively requires strategic decision, but more importantly, the need to have the right people at the right place.
Giving our perspective on Operational Excellence, Marcel Bronmans, Head of Technology Operations, explained why SWIFT is awake 24 hours a day to ensure that its customers can sleep at night. He raised the importance of a strong culture of FNAO (Failure is not an option) that is accomplished by people. “Technology resilience is the core of our business and people are key to deliver it.”
"Extraordinary organisation, nice place, well selected conten t for the work sessions, good balance between technical and high level issues"
Oscar Domenech, IT Architect, la Caixa
During the SWIFT plenary, Amanda Westwood, Head of Customer Services, Brian Haughan, Head of Products and Marcel Bronmans, Head of Technology Operations presented SWIFT’s product evolution, customer services’ recent developments and how, we ensure to give our users peace of mind while lowering their total cost of ownership.
This year’s SOFE focused more than ever on IT and Operations and senior SWIFT representatives provided a preview of the 16 work sessions demo presented at SOFE.
Innovation and collaboration were an integral part of the programme. Peter Hinssen, CEO, ACROSS, gave an inspirational presentation around “Innovation through collaboration”. He said: “Innovation is about dealing with constant change and technology thrives on change. Innovation is not about invention, but it is a matter of clever combinations, it is about being clever, about adopting an innovation mindset of creativity, it is about promoting a culture of 'open'. Innovation is often not just extrapolation, but about daring to take big leaps!”
Peter Hinssen, CEO, ACROSS
Right after Peter, who left a fascinated and amused audience, Matteo Rizzi, Head of Community Channels, demonstrated through concrete examples the beauty and power of communities and concluded in the words of Lazaro Campos, CEO “SWIFT is a community first and foremost.” Following, Kosta Peric, presented his mission as the Head of Innovation, the new products development; Alliance Lite and Alliance Integrator and the recently launched SWIFT innovation challenges.
If there is someone who has been awake at night during the past weeks then, it is Bill Boss, the Head of FX Operations, UBS. The keynote speaker of the closing plenary shared his views on the current challenges faced by the industry.
Bill Boss, the Head of FX Operations, UBS
Alain Raes, Chief Executive of EMEA, SWIFT
Risk management, regulatory concerns as well as capacity and cost considerations were at the heart of his speech. Looking forward, Bill suggested the creation of new solutions to deal with settlement risk and also the need for Market Infrastructures to consider industry capacity to deal with critical mass.
After having summarised the dialogue and feedback exchanged during SOFE, Alain Raes, Chief Executive of EMEA, presented SWIFT’s strategy for 2009 and how it is translated into tangible actions for the community in the region.
After thanking all the partners and delegates for their engagement during the forum, Alain concluded: “SOFE is the event for Operations and IT people of the SWIFT community. The agenda has been shaped to that end. Forty countries are present at the forum. It is the place where you speak with colleagues coming not only from Europe but from every where in Europe Middle East and Africa. SOFE is more than ever the Operations Forum of the SWIFT community in EMEA!”
SWIFT Support Enhanced Forum built on the programme and theme of SOFE
After the SOFE closing, SWIFT held its second SWIFT Support Enhanced (SSE) forum with about 80 key customers participating.
This year's forum focused on how well-controlled business continuity plans can help institutions increase resilience and minimise operational risk in the event of a site outage. ING, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and Bank of England shared their experience and stressed the importance of building strong business continuity plans and testing the fallback procedures on a regular basis. Presentations were followed by break-out sessions to debate and share best practices on the same topic.
The forum was also an opportunity to review past achievements and to look at SWIFT’s plans for evolving the Support Enhanced service in the years to come. Fiona Ramsay, Project Manager HSBC, enthusiastically commented "It is great to see that our feedback has been taken into account. Many suggestions were taken on board to improve the Support Enhanced service. One example is the recently launched Configuration Browser that allows us online access to our data." More improvements to the Support Enhanced service, such as automated health-checks and remote support, are foreseen in 2009 and beyond.
|
