Nationwide building society aims to save £400,000 a year by using
centralised systems management technology to cut the number of
visits IT staff have to make to PCs and cash machines, writes Karl
Cushing.
Nationwide has implemented a systems management server (SMS) for
installing, configuring and maintaining software and hardware
across its distributed network of 1,000 administration centres and
branch offices as part of a corporate migration from Windows NT 4.0
and SMS 1.2 to Windows 2000 and SMS 2.0.
The management system will give Nationwide's IT department
centralised control over the use and performance of more than
17,000 PCs and distributed servers. It will make the roll out and
monitoring of software and hardware easier and enable network
bandwidth to be used more efficiently. The system should also help
Nationwide to provide better support for remote workers.
"It is difficult to imagine how we would manage our increasingly
complex environment without this tool," said Arthur Amos, head of
technology support at Nationwide.
"We carry out nightly software distribution to our admin centre and
branch users. With SMS 2.0 we receive automatic notification of any
failed jobs. This leads to less follow-up action and eases the
pressure on our support teams," he said.
Amos anticipates cost savings through a re-examination of
Nationwide's desktop software use and licensing arrangements. It
will also negate the need for physical visits to install software
updates on its Windows NT-based cashpoint terminals. "Combining
these two advantages will save more than £400,000 per annum," Arnos
said.
Nationwide has a good track record in innovative IT projects. It
launched the first internet banking service in the UK and Europe's
first Pocket PC PDA mobile banking service. Last year it announced
plans to implement biometric signature and verification technology
for some services across its network of UK branches in early 2003.