Case Study - Financial Services Company

Project: Mainframe Legacy Support

Executive Summary This financial services company has quickly risen from a local bank card issuer to an industry leader in the U.S. credit card industry. Much of their success can be directly attributed to the use of information technology for customer acquisition and customer retention. By constantly developing and refining the use of its proprietary information-based strategy, our client is able to tailor their diverse array of products to the individual needs of each customer.

The Business Challenge Our client continues to drive innovation and change in the Financial Services Industry. New and emerging strategies are creating new business requirements and functional needs. The current legacy system supporting existing business requirements was old, difficult to maintain and unresponsive to the strategic direction of the enterprise. Furthermore, the resources and skills required to support the multi-faceted system were unique and difficult to find. A decision was made to replace the existing core system with a new servicing platform. The challenge was to manage cost for existing application development and free key client resources for the new project.

Challenge(s) Being Met Initially, experienced FirstShore services were used to augment existing IT resources. Our client quickly recognized FirstShore's breadth of capabilities, experience and strength of delivery could provide a lower risk and cost effective alternative to outsourcing offshore. Working in partnership with the client, the FirstShore team was called upon to participate in the full project development process while adhering to a defined Service Level Agreement. The FirstShore delivery model provided a flexible blend of onsite and offsite resources, which relieved existing associates to focus on the new strategic development initiatives.

Services Provided
Outsourced technical competency relative to the following:

• Technical Designers, Programmers/Analysts and Testers
• Design and Development of Program Specifications
• Programming, Unit Testing and Documentation
• Multi-platform support using a unique blend of off-site and on-site personnel
• Project Management
• On-Site Outsourcing Knowledgeable/Experienced personnel
• Provide all the above while using the client's mandated processes and methodologies

Benefits Being Delivered
FirstShore minimized client risk while providing the support to deliver quality technology projects to the enterprise in a cost effective manner:

• Reduced IT support costs
• Improved turnaround of business support initiatives
• Allowed client to retain key employees to focus on the new strategic enterprise-wide application
• FirstShore provides training to new resources for vendors and employees of the client to rapidly assimilate them into the environment
• Developed on-boarding process to bring in new resources with minimal start-up time
• Participated in the development and adherence to the client's offshore engagement model

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