Operational excellence in the face of change
How can SWIFT and its community members meet the challenges of maintaining the highest operational standards while engaging with the demands of fast paced industry changes? Two forums set out to find answers.
To sustain operational excellence in the years ahead, SWIFT and its customers will not only have to react to change, but to initiate it. This was the clear message from both the SWIFT Operations Forum Europe (SOFE) and the Premium Services Forum, which ran consecutively in La Hulpe in mid-December.
The common theme of both events was ‘Operational excellence in times of change’. SOFE, hosted by Leo Punt, Head of Customer Support EMEA, SWIFT, set out to explore how the financial services industry should move forward post-crisis to find the right balance between cutting costs on the one hand and reducing operational risk and preserving operational excellence on the other.
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“Agility is important and innovation is a key contributor to that.”
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Opening the event, Punt noted an encouraging turn-out with 350 participants from 37 countries and 11 exhibiting partners. In a hint of what was to come during the conference, Punt argued that in grappling with current market conditions, “Agility is important and innovation is a key contributor to that.”
Outlining SWIFT’s 2015 strategy in the opening plenary, Gottfried Leibbrandt, Head of Marketing, SWIFT put into context the challenges that SWIFT faces in the years ahead. Given the growing penetration of the internet in social and commercial interaction, SWIFT had to find a path between “being the Facebook of the banking industry or sticking to our knitting and doing more of the same,” he observed.
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"SWIFT had to find a path between being the Facebook of the banking industry or sticking to our knitting and doing more of the same."
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With traffic growth in 2010 restored to previous levels, Leibbrandt highlighted a number of lessons that SWIFT has taken on board in developing its new strategy. Among them, he noted, are that there is still significant mileage in SWIFT’s core activities; customers are looking for complete solutions with end-to-end integration and interoperability between standards; and one size does not fit all. Effective change takes time, however. “Corporates, for example, are now a very valuable part of our offering but it has taken us eight years to get there,” said Leibbrandt.
Keynote speaker, Philippe Dermine, CIO, Isabel, a provider of professional eBanking applications to 110,000 corporates and SMEs in Europe, took up the theme of total cost of ownership (TCO) to explain how Isabel and SWIFT are partnering to reduce risk. “We are all working to automate the transfer of high volumes of transactions between our customers and banks,” he said. Most of the time that is done well. However, he stressed, there is a risk that comes with change. While innovation is essential, changes in infrastructure, connectivity, and applications are often a cause of problems.
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"We must look at what is already in place that can be reused efficiently."
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“We must look at what is already in place that can be reused efficiently,” said Dermine. Today, he noted, businesses use a variety of tools, interfaces and processes to work with their multiple banks. Isabel is designed to rationalise these requirements through a Software-as-a-Service (Saas) solution. It has joined SWIFT as a Group 2 Non-Supervised Entity. Participating banks can connect through their existing SWIFT connection to Isabel, which provides easy access to the 110,000 enterprises using Isabel’s services.
”The deal with Isabel has taught me two things,” commented Alain Raes, Chief Executive, EMEA, SWIFT. The first is patience. “We have been building this relationship for about eight years. Now we are moving to the next phase,” he said. “Secondly, it highlights the importance and the power of having new communities working together to bring more value to the broader community.”
With the ambitious 2015 strategy, Raes observed, “We have a lot on our plate, but we feel confident that we will be able to achieve our objectives, working hand in hand with our customers.”
Innovation
Having reassured participants that SWIFT’s bedrock principles of robustness and reliability would not be sacrificed, the second day of SOFE was given over to exploring how change can be sparked.
In a plenary on innovation, Sean Park, one of the venture capitalist coaches and Innotribe Leaders for Cloud Computing at Sibos, delivered a keynote speech on “Platforms, Markets, and Bytes” and showed his video on “The Financial Reformation”. He was joined by Peter Vander Auwera , Innovation Leader at SWIFT, who unveiled a new presentation on nurturing innovation: ‘How to make babies’, “Ideas will not flow in a castle with long corridors and closed offices,” he insisted. 
For the first time, SOFE experimented with a ‘speed networking’ session, which was well received. Of the subsequent work sessions, an Innotribe Lab on cloud computing generated particular enthusiasm with 70 participants collaborating in writing a ‘cloud manifesto’ for the financial community.
During the closing plenary, Edwin de Pauw, Head of CCI, Euroclear, Devdatt Kore, VP SWIFTNet development and Support, Citi and Ed Kelsey Manager Payment systems and communications, Bank of England gave their perspective on operational excellence in times of change and the challenge of finding the right balance between the operational excellence and the necessities of cutting the costs down. “Starting point is deciding the operational model also known as business continuity model. Combine of thrust of technology and procedures boosts efficiency. If your model is right, the costs will stay down.” Devdatt Kore, Citi. Closing the event, Leo Punt, host of SOFE for the second year, wrap-up and highlighted the main take–away from the work sessions and thank the 350 delegates and exhibitors that attended SOFE this year despite the adverse weather conditions and the fact that Sibos had taken place later this year, and in Europe.
Premium Services Forum
Over the next two days, the Premium Services Forum, hosted by Christian Sarafidis Head of Sales Services, EMEA SWIFT brought together subscribers to SWIFT’s Premium Plus and Premium Custom services to explore how to get the most out of the SWIFT services they were using. The forum also provided an opportunity for Hans Cobben, CEO, Arkelis, to explain how SWIFT’s acquisition of AMH enhances the Alliance product suite, enabling integration and multi-network capability.
A number of focus groups, running in parallel, addressed challenges specific to PSF participants, including corporate needs, incident management, change management and best practices. A lively discussion on corporate involvement in SWIFT, for example, identified onboarding as an issue requiring further attention, notably in explaining the various options available.
A panel discussion on the future of support services at SWIFT allowed Werner Hellinckx, Head of End-to-End Ordering, Bruno Coopmans, Head of Key Client Service Management and Leo Punt to outline the changes that SWIFT is introducing to facilitate customer interaction. The aims of the EasySWIFT programme, said Hellinckx, are to lower TCO, improve the customer experience, simplify tools and apply industry standards. “In 2011, we will be focusing on two main areas: process improvement and tools,” he said. “For new users,” he added, “a customer care team has been set up to proactively contact them to avoid any onboarding issues.” 
Closing the forum, Sarafidis noted that feedback from the 2009 PSF had been integrated into the planning of this year’s event, for example, in the holding of market infrastructure and central bank only sessions. This focus had paid off, he suggested. "I was impressed by the level of engagement and enthusiasm from the participants,” Sarafidis observed. “This unique forum with all our major clients is indeed the ideal platform to share best practices and ideas to push the limit of operational excellence even higher."
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