This is just one of 17 in-depth case studies I completed for The 2018 TBM Council Awards. In total, I’ve written approximately 45 case studies for these award ceremonies over the years.
Like all industries today, financial services is fundamentally changing in the wake of technology disruptions. Ironically, in order to keep pace, most businesses in the sector are investing heavily in the very technologies that are disrupting them. Fidelity International is no different.
This arms race is driven by customers’ demand for ever-increasing levels of service and lower costs, and it is resulting in a more judicious use of infrastructure technologies like compute, storage, and networking. In heavily regulated industries like financial services (post-2008’s Great Recession), the need to recoup the costs of government oversight also is a major driver of cost recovery and efficiency.
“The market is changing very, very quickly,” said Noel Miles, COO of Fidelity’s foundations team. “Technology is enabling that to happen and, to respond to it, we actively seek new opportunities and innovative ways to use technology, while ultimately putting the client at the absolute center of everything we do.”
An impressive 50/50 CTB:RTB split
Even as demand for new technology increases, Fidelity’s IT department is under intense pressure to deliver more capabilities with either the same or fewer resources. This means IT must find ways to shift budget from run-the-business (RTB) spending to change-the-business (CTB) spending. After doing this with spreadsheets for 10 years, Fidelity has managed to achieve a very respectable 50/50 RTB:CTB ratio—all while pulling a significant number of dollars out of the IT budget.