IT often underpins any business drive to improve efficiency, and
the Nottingham Building Society
has found that simplifying IT makes a big difference.
With more than 30 branches and 500 employees, the Nottingham
faced the challenge of aligning its core IT systems and
infrastructure to its business objectives and reviewing each of its
processes.
Working with systems integrator
Esteem, the society has
re-engineered its entire IT estate to reduce its service overhead
and enable its IT team to work more strategically towards
longer-term goals, employing
virtualisation and
remote management technology. The result is improved customer
service, branch communication, business continuity, competitive
advantage and business agility, says the Nottingham.
"Customers are individuals and may find the branch experience
and dealing with a person preferable to interacting online," says
Jack Cutts, head of IT at the Nottingham. "We understand this.
That's why we have made our IT systems capable of offering
customers total flexibility in how they conduct business with
us."
The Nottingham's IT infrastructure needed updating to help it
move from a product-centric to a customer-focused organisation,
says Cutts. It also had to meet auditing requirements and ensure
the secure management of personal information, as regulated by the
FSA.
Removing the fire-fighting approach to system management meant a
considerable change for the whole company, including the IT
department. The IT team needed to move away from the mundane,
day-to-day tasks needed to keep systems running, such as unblocking
emails and resetting passwords, and focus instead on implementing
new systems to drive the business forward.
The building society worked with systems integrator Esteem to
review its existing systems and design and implement a new IT
infrastructure that would transform all its business processes.
Infrastructure improvements included a new network, a storage
area network (SAN) and a disaster recovery centre with a NetApp
virtual tape library (VTL) and
VMware. As well as replacing its core savings and mortgage
system with a Summit system, the
Nottingham implemented a new version of Microsoft
Windows Server, Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft
Exchange Server, as well as
Citrix Presentation Server for improved branch access.
"We have replaced every server and PC in the business," says
Cutts. "We have also trained every member of staff. This is no mean
feat, as almost every process in the business has changed."
The overhaul was completed in March this year, and the
Nottingham's IT management is now simplified and improved, with
centralised systems and automated management processes. "We have
completely automated email management and introduced secure single
sign-on for all users, freeing up the IT team to concentrate on
strategic business objectives," says Cutts.
The company has also invested in Summit specialist mortgage
application software from
TietoEnator. The new system
enables the Nottingham to offer online products and instant quotes,
and makes it easier to add and change products within stringent FSA
guidelines. Cutts says it also helps the society launch new
products to the market more quickly and cheaply.
The Nottingham's IT investment
Hardware: 14 Sun servers , 2 Sun SANs with Cisco switches, 2 Sun
tape libraries, NetApp virtual tape library, 33 IBM branch servers,
53 IBM Blade servers.
Software: Citrix Presentation Server, Citrix Access Gateway,
Citrix Password Manager, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Active
Directory, Microsoft Windows Server, SQL, Office, Visio Pro, VMware
Virtual Infrastructure, Symantec Netbackup, IBM Websphere,
Santricity (Sun Replication software).