CC3002 POST IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES

COUNTRY BANK CASE STUDY

Spring Semester | February 2013

Table of Contents
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1 2. The company ...................................................................................................... 1 3. Regional Office and Branches ............................................................................ 1 4. Existing IT systems ............................................................................................. 2 5. ISST department ................................................................................................. 2 6. The MyBank Project............................................................................................ 3 7. MyBank modules ................................................................................................ 3 8. MyBank installation constraints ........................................................................... 3 9. MyBank hardware and software requirements .................................................... 4 10. MyBank Objective Technology Steering Committee (MTSC) ........................ 6 11. MyBank Project Plan ......................................................................................... 7 12. Data issues ....................................................................................................... 8 13. Staff issues ....................................................................................................... 9 14. Support issues .................................................................................................. 9

CC3002 2013

Coursework Assignment: Case Study

CC3002 Coursework Case Study: Country Bank Ltd. 1. Introduction You are the project manager of the myBank development project at Country Bank Ltd, responsible for managing the whole project from conception to completion. Most of the development work has been completed and final system and user testing is under way. The remaining tasks are to: plan the installation of MyBank: plan all aspects of the installation, including activities that will be done by Country Bank employees and those that will be contracted out to a third party plan the support of MyBank and other Country Bank information systems: plan the set up, staffing and management of a new Help Desk service within the Country Bank ISST department

Detailed guidance on the content and structure of these plans is available in the assignment specifications. 2. The company Country Bank Limited is a medium sized bank of Nepal. Along with many other banks, it has its corporate office at Kathmandu. Despite strong competition from other banks, Country Bank has been able to reach out to high number of customers for deposit and loans. Recently the bank celebrated 1 million customers milestone. The corporate office handles various functionalities of Financial Predictions, Human Resource Management, Information System Implementation, Research and Planning.

3. Regional Office and Branches The bank has made its presence in the country with Regional Offices at Dhangadi, Nepalgunj, Pokhara and Biratnagar. There are total of 71 Country Bank branches. Each branch office is handled by a minimum team of 6 permanent staffs, 1 Branch Manager, 2 cashiers, 1 customer support and 1 support staff. Each branch offices handle Deposit and Withdraw. Any loan request made to the Branch Office is forwarded to the Regional Office by the Branch Manager. Cash counters are open for transactions on 10-5 basis, but there is provision of Special Counters for Deposit in Morning Hours (8-10AM) and Evening Hours (57PM). The Corporate Office also acts as regional office for Central Development Region.

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Coursework Assignment: Case Study

Regional Office Location Kathmandu Biratnagar Pokhara Nepalgunj Dhangadhi

Branch Manager

Branch Offices Monitored

Yubraj Subedi Bikash Shah Chandra Gurung Suman Kishore Amrit Bhatta

12 branch offices (including 5 using existing Accounting packages) 17 branch offices (including 7 using existing Accounting packages) 15 branch offices (including 8 using existing Accounting packages) 14 branch offices (including 6 using existing Accounting packages) 13 branch offices (including 4 using existing Accounting packages)

4. Existing IT systems Country Banks technology infrastructure has grown organically and the Branch Offices use a range of different systems depending on their size and how/when they were acquired. Currently, 30 retail outlets use off-the-shelf Accounting packages, but the rest of the retail outlets use a mixture of manual and computerbased processes to keep track of deposit and withdraw amount by customers. Two years ago, Country Bank came up with requirement to develop single software that would operate on Client-Server Architecture and would consolidate all the transactions occurred in Branch and Regional Offices. The Consolidates, Regional as well as Branch report would be visible from MIS software. The Consolidates as well as Individual branch reports would be visible to the Regional Office of that Region, while Branch Office would be able to operate Transaction System of the Software. The Branch Office would also be able to see the Client Details of that particular Branch. The old software is named AccPro (Accounting Package) and new system is named MyBank. 5. ISST department AccPro was developed using Oracle by an in-house ISST Development team recruited specifically for the project. Most of the Development teams have remained at the company and now report to the ISST Manager, Surya Rana. Over the last two years, they have conducted ad hoc maintenance of AccPro and other systems, including accounting and personnel systems at the Kathmandu Corporate Office (see Support Issues section). The ISST Development team includes: 2 project managers (including you) 2 system / database administrators 3 business analysts 8 Oracle developers

The ISST department also has a PC support team (3 staff at CO, 5 at the ROs), supporting the installation and use of PCs and standard office software, and a Network support team (3 staff at CO).
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Coursework Assignment: Case Study

The Network team has recently completed the 18-month COBWAN (Country Bank Wide Area Network) project to get all retail outlets onto a fully integrated companywide network linked to the ROs, BOs and the Kathmandu CO. 6. The MyBank Project In order to continue to compete effectively, Country Banks board of directors made a strategic decision two years ago to improve efficiency by investing in new supply chain software and processes. This has entailed a company-wide business process review and includes the MyBank project. The aim of MyBank is to have all BOs, ROs and CO connected. As a result all transactions will be automated, i.e. deposit; withdraw; loan MyBank will provide a Customer Relationship Management Module so that, customers would be able to check their transactions through username and password provided. The aim is to have MyBank fully operational across the whole organisation by the end of December 2013 with customer service-integration. Any ISST staff on the MyBank project is available to be assigned to appropriate tasks, and most of the Development team have been committed to the project for the last 6 months. Surya Rana has insisted that this project is given top priority. Staffs from user departments (mainly Operations, but also Finance) have also been working on the project during this time (requirements and design workshops, user acceptance testing, etc.). It has been acknowledged that their involvement may need to increase during the installation phase. 7. MyBank modules The following modules comprise the MyBank system:
Module Branch Officemodule Regional Officemodule Customer-module MIS-module Interface: accounting system to MyBank Interface: MyBank to accounting system Description Standard functions linked to deposit and withdrawal of funds and reporting functions available to the branch manager on a PC. Loan and Interest Module. Online module to check the transaction details. Module to view Consolidated as well as Individual Branch Transactions reports from Regional and Corporate Office. Nightly transfer of customer details Nightly transfer of transaction details

8. MyBank installation constraints The following constraints must be recognised for the MyBank installation:

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Coursework Assignment: Case Study

A minimum installation is the Branch Office-module (for one BO), the Regional Office-module (for all branches supported by that RO) and the two interfaces The Branch Office-module may be installed for individual BOs separately The MIS Module at Corporate Office should be installed at the end, so that it can show the Consolidated Report. The earliest possible date that installation can begin is 4 June 2013.

9. MyBank hardware and software requirements MyBank has been developed using a three-tier thin-client architecture. This means that the project team has to install application software and a database on the servers (see below), but does not have to install any client software. All staff need on their PCs to use any of the MYBANK modules is a standard web browser and the appropriate URL. Access to each of the modules will be controlled by username and password.

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Coursework Assignment: Case Study

The following equipment is required to support MyBank:

Equipment Branch Office PCs Description Currently used by store managers for various admin tasks; will support additional MyBank functions Currently used by operators to access AccPro Country Bank Wide Area Network (COBWAN) Application Server and Database Server loaded on a single X-1000 UNIX server Separate Application Server X-420 and Database Server X-1000 Installation requirements None; at least one PC installed in all branch offices

Local PCs Network Development environment

None; existing PC provision is adequate None None; MyBank Release 2.3.1 currently loaded (this refers to both application and database); this is expected to be the production release of the software MyBank Release 2.3.1 currently loaded and being tested by user team; it is expected that this testing will complete in mid-April and that this version of the software will be signed off as the first production release Note that this environment will be used for user training once testing has completed; it will take two days to configure this environment before user training can begin. Hardware to be delivered and installed by Meridian Solutions at the start of May. Estimated 2 days to install hardware and operating systems. The project team needs 3 further days to migrate MyBank Release 2.3.1 to this environment. To be de-commissioned once installation of MyBank fully operational in all areas; Meridian Solutions to remove hardware (1 day) in partexchange arrangement.

Test/Training environment

Production environment

Separate Application Server X-1000 and Database Server X-3000

Existing DIPS server

Database server X-580 (no separate application server as AccPro is two-tier)

Note: all servers are located in a secure room in the Kathmandu CO ISST department.

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Coursework Assignment: Case Study

10. MyBank Objective Technology Steering Committee (MTSC) The MyBank project is being overseen by the project steering committee (MTSC). The committee meets once a month at the Country Bank CO. for a report on progress from the project manager; to make important decisions regarding budget, resources, time and quality; to determine the overall direction of the project The MYBANK project manager has a good working relationship with all members of MTSC. However, despite his genuine enthusiasm for the project, the Operations Director, Milan Kandel, has been reluctant to commit his own time to MTSC meetings. More seriously, he has been slow to release staff from their normal duties to spend time on the project (e.g. for user acceptance testing, etc.), claiming that operational staff are "too busy". At a MTSC meeting in August, the Managing Director, Seema Khanal, emphasised the strategic importance of the project and stressed that everyone involved should give MyBank the highest priority.
Steering Committee role Executive Senior user Senior user Senior supplier MYBANK project manager Position Managing Director Operations Director Financial Controller ISST Manager ISST Project Manager Name Seema Khanal Milan Kandel Bibel Karna Jeevan Nepal You

MTSC have given the following guidance with regard the installation and support of the MyBank system: all MyBank modules to be installed in all areas as soon as possible the MIS-module have a less urgent requirement as the full business benefit of these modules will only be realised when all BOs and ROs are live on MyBank there should be as little disruption as possible to normal business operation any Country Bank Office may only close down for a single day as a result of this project (a few retail outlets are not open on Sundays)

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11. MyBank Project Plan The following table shows an agreed high-level schedule for the project:
Stage / milestone Project start-up Planned date(s) Agree statement of need and membership of MTSC Steering Committee by 31 Dec 2011 By 28 Jan 2012 By 8 Apr 2012 Actual date(s) Signed off on 22 Dec 2011

Project brief, incl. feasibility assessment Project Initiation Document (PID) incl. baseline plan Analysis phase Design phase Development and Implementation phase Preliminary installation and support plan Final installation and support plan Installation Support phase

11 Apr 2012 - 24 Jun 2012 27 Jun 2012 - 30 Sep 2012 10 Oct 2012 11 May 2012 By Week 5 2013 (date to be confirmed) By Week 13 2013 (date to be confirmed) 4 June 2013 (earliest) 14 December 2013 Must start as soon as any part of MyBank is live

Delivered 3 Feb 2012 Agreed by SC on 10 Feb 2012 Delivered 8 Apr 2012 Revised 12 Apr 2012 Agreed 15 Apr 2012 18 Apr 2012 - 8 Jul 2012 (completed) 11 Jul 2012 - 12 Oct 2012 (completed) 17 Oct 2012 - (on-going and on-schedule) (note: assignment 1)

(note: assignment 2)

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Coursework Assignment: Case Study

12. Data issues The following table shows an overview of the data that will be used in the MyBank system. Some data will need to be migrated from existing systems during the installation phase; migration requirements are also shown in the table. MTSC is aware of these migration issues and that they will need to provide staff (probably from the BOs) to assist with this exercise.
Data Accounts Existing status Approx. 80% of existing accounts in AccPro, with full details. All exist in DIPS. Deposit Withdrawal Balance at end of Day Balance at end of Week Balance at end of Month Balance at end of Year Interest Customer details created in accounting system; existing nightly interface transfers supplier details into AccPro, to ensure consistency between systems. Do not exist currently. MYBANK requirements All account details required (approx. 3000+ distinct accounts) All required in MyBank (5 distinct account categories) Accurate balance required for all accounts

Account Categories Transaction Details

Customers

Existing data conversion (interface) program has been modified to work with MyBank

Loan

Loan Requests must be processed by Regional Office of the concerned branch

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Coursework Assignment: Case Study

13. Staff issues Rumours have been circulating within the BOs and ROs about possible redundancies following the introduction of MyBank. These rumours have been denied by senior management during steering committee meetings. The aim is to streamline procurement and inventory management, but the managing director has clearly stated that this is with a view to expansion rather than seeking to reduce the number of staff. There would also appear to be some anxiety about MyBank in the BOs. Branch managers are concerned that the new system will bring about a loss of independence and flexibility, while staffs are worried about being able to get used to the new complicated looking tills. 14. Support issues The Country Bank ISST department does not operate a formal help desk. While ISST staffs have been providing PC, network and other IS support, this has been arranged by informal telephone requests to ISST and local support staff. As part of the scope of the MyBank project, a new ISST Help Desk function within the ISST department is required. The purpose of this help desk will be to provide support for all Country Bank's IT systems, in addition to the MyBank system. Help desk staff will be recruited internally in the first instance, i.e. from existing Development PC and network support teams, or any other appropriate Country Bank staff. The role of MyBank project manager includes taking on the role of the help desk manager for an initial one-year period once the installation of the MyBank system is complete. Recruitment of new staff from external sources will be considered in a year's time, but this is outside the scope of these reports.
- End of Case Study -

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