IT directors can help companies achieve compliance with
financial regulations by reducing the number of data warehouses
within their company and enforcing rules on developing new systems,
according to one expert.
Mark Connolley, senior manager in the capital markets practice
at Accenture, said that many financial firms needed to review the
way they store and distribute data.
Regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley and the forthcoming Basel 2
require financial firms to show that they have adequate systems in
place for storing vast amounts of financial data to help them
measure risks better and tighten financial reporting.
He advised IT directors to work towards having just one data
warehouse for storing the most important financial data (credit and
market) and store other information in smaller data marts.
Having fewer data warehouses will cut IT support costs and
creating a central repository of data will also help firms gain a
single view of their customer - having the same name and account
details for the same customer across different business lines.
This will require IT directors to work closely with business
heads from other departments who control the data flowing into the
organisation company, rather than where it is stored, he added.
IT directors should seek to minimise the number of business
intelligence systems used by their organisation - ideally using one
software package instead of a handful from different suppliers.
"Once you have rationalised the IT components sitting within
your IT infrastructure you can rationalise your IT systems and then
reduce the staff needed to support them and the number of IT
licences," said Connolley.