‘In the digital world, unreliable banking software is a death sentence’
We asked ABRIS COO, Viktor Weininger about the impact of 2020 on ABRIS and FIs, and the role, methodologies, and direction of digital transformation.
Q: We can’t let 2020 slip past without a mention. It has affected everyone differently. How are you?
A: The past year has completely upturned our lives. My family and I were fortunately spared by the virus, but I’m sorry to say it attacked some of my acquaintances and friends, in spite of their precautions. The moment the virus arrived [in Hungary], we reacted swiftly by switching to remote work already before the measures imposed by the government. This has helped us protect our staff from the risks of unnecessary commuting and ensured that work would be done at home, in safety.
Q: Was the switch to home office difficult?
A: I wouldn’t say that. The necessary infrastructure was already there, the switch happened from one day to another, without problems. This should not be difficult for IT companies, I think.
Q: The company is present on 5 continents. Your clients are major financial institutions of the world. How did they react?
A: They reacted essentially well. It was interesting to watch how governments reacted around the world as the virus attacked differently and at different times. We had first-hand information from our clients. Attitude towards remote work had been substantially different before the pandemic. Some companies were adamant about onsite work, refusing remote access or even screen sharing. Well, this changed at a moment’s notice in the spring. Everyone switched to remote and secure access was established swiftly. True, spring was a huge scare and made everyone put on the brakes. Banks did everything in their power to ensure business continuity, immediately pausing investments. They reacted swiftly. Those who were ahead in terms of digital transformation had it easier.
Q: Is that characteristic of your clientele?
A: Definitely. Our products enhance banking operation, they automate processes, creating simpler and more stable operation. Those who had recognized the benefits before, felt safer and could focus on other areas in this situation. It has given them competitive advantage. We have several clients, whose end-of-day processes run in a completely automated manner with GAMMA, without an operator overseeing them. The system will notify them anyway in case of a problem, and as we collect information continuously from every part of the system, errors are easy to resolve. GAMMA can even intervene autonomously, as the newer versions of the tool are capable of performing automated tasks in response to certain values beyond the threshold.
Q: How did the FIs who have yet to reach this level react?
A: In general, we saw two types of strategies. Some escaped forward, some turned back. The latter played it safe; they wanted to stabilize their financial situation, so they cut back on spending and investments. Those who escaped forward have also cut back on spending (i.e they stopped projects that are not mission-critical), because no one knows the medium-term effects of the virus, we can only guess. But at the same time, these banks have become more receptive towards automation and intelligent, AI-based decision-making mechanisms in IT operation.
There is quite a bit of professional debate about how banks are more than account management software and whether banking operation can even be simplified to such an extent. Well, even if it is not so simple at this very moment, it is unquestionable that the secure operation of the core banking system is key to the stability of the bank. In the digital world, unreliable banking software is a death sentence.
Q: How can you make positive use of this disrupted world order?
A: Our task here is to find those, who are escaping forward, and fortunately there are a lot of them. Operation is finally in the focus now that banks have seen what a human resource bottleneck means for operation, and how the lack of personal encounters distance business ideas from realisation and especially from the operation of a solution. When I first started out, operators first saw functions when they went live. Today, all the sizeable companies know DevOps, ALM, and Cloud. They are familiarizing themselves with them, creating teams, and starting programs for different fields of operation automation. The goal now is NoOps, an operation solution encompassing the entire application lifecycle without human intervention.
Reliable cloud services of automated scalability are one such requirement. The optimisation of resources solves the most frequent operation problems of the past decade, like that of insufficient memory, running out of storage. It used to happen often that we did not know the reasons, we just felt the system slow down – then it turned out that one resource or the other caused a bottleneck.
The other focal field is how fast new developments reach production. A lot of tasks in the development workflow are still performed manually, while there is immense automation potential. The question is can we implement a change that is small enough not to affect the operation of the system, but which still carries its own business value, complies with development and security standards, as well as documentation requirements, is suitable for automated testing and delivers the results proposed by the specifications in both disposable standalone and integrated environments, and is capable of making autonomous decisions regarding quality and deployment to production, and does so at the right moment. This whole process takes but a few hours. Transformation is a long journey that must start with the most pressing issues. There are legacy systems and interfaces that are extremely difficult to upgrade, or that cannot be replaced part by part, and some are even impossible to move to the cloud.
Q: What is to be done in such cases? Does this exclude banks from digital transformation?
A: No, it doesn’t. Everyone can take part in digital transformation. Of course, money also plays a part in how high one can aim. But there are free solutions and tools that provide immense help with automation; hence you can reach tangible results with a small investment. I believe the most important thing for the IT department of a bank or a large company is to see your options and know what „ideal” operation would be considering today’s standards. This picture, this vision must be divided into stages and applied to the current capabilities, the operation as is. One thing is for certain, it is not enough to introduce new tools, workflow must also be addressed. You must use Agile to turn Agile.
Q: Well, that sounds intriguing. What do you mean?
A: It is a proven fact that Agile is a more efficient way of operation, but Agile transformation cannot be learned from the books. You cannot apply the same rules to different organizations, there is no template. I have seen innumerable negative examples in the world. A badly construed Agile organisation can even be counterproductive. I think workflow transformation should begin with the lean loss analysis of the existing operation, and the losses should then be remedied through workflow regulation or by the introduction of automation and various tools. Solutions should be chosen from the Agile toolkit, and there are numerous tools that support continuous delivery, which can help you with automation. Of course, the optimal tool must only be selected after you have laid down the guiding principles. And the Agile approach means that you need not create perfection at once; proceed gradually, transform, and introduce parts, handle them as prototypes with constant reassessment and improvement.
Q: Many believe that in the evolution of software development DevOps will replace Agile.
A: The scope is different. Agile does not address software operation, it only shows you how to develop in small groups and in small increments while in continuous consultation with the customer, delivering prototypes swiftly. DevOps brings operability into the picture and it encompasses more fields and teams (not to mention DevSecOps, which also places emphasis on long-neglected security considerations), but it does not offer a defined framework, a methodology for software development. At the same time, it provides tools for the key stages of the application workflow, the key pillar being automation. With the smart combination of their advantages, the two philosophies can cooperate perfectly.
Q: Is there a tool that supports this, which you’d introduce as a priority?
A: You don’t have to introduce a new product; these are usually already on hand at any serious organisation. The way I see it, a collaboration tool that can manage the entire application lifecycle is the most essential. It is particularly important that this should be highly customisable and offer integration with tools that will help you automate the lifecycle. In this regard, JIRA is the most widespread solution, but Microfocus PPM can fit the flow of certain large organisations better, as it allows for the management of complex, interconnected projects under one umbrella. Another tool, like JIRA, might complement it well in terms of task and issue management.
In software development, a version control system is one of the most important tools. Surprisingly, it is in its early stages in many places. If we look at the largest lean loss of our SDLC process, it is usually the testing stage (and let us not forget the inventory loss arising from the time spent waiting for testing results). So, you could say that automation should start with testing. It is, however, the most complex field to automate, it requires the greatest attitude shift, and there is no 100% result. In unit testing, the code will be modified, so it is a task for developers. Front-end testing is often limited to the UI only. Writing a complex E2E test is quite complicated to do and requires special care, especially if you want to reproduce a true-to-life user’s journey. Hence, we cannot expect fast and significant results from test automation, still, I’d start with unit tests (it is the fastest way to pinpoint errors, so it saves resources) and smoke tests (as this is preceded by the selection of the appropriate testing tool, and it is easy to implement and it filters out trivial mistakes immediately, without intervention). Test automation, therefore, is a difficult nut to crack, but you can swiftly reap the benefits of build automation or the introduction of a configuration management tool that helps you configure test environments and opens the door to containerisation and subsequently, to the cloud. Automated processes are faster, more accurate, and less costly than human effort.
Q: In what ways did 2020 change your thinking?
A: It only affected my thinking to a minimal extent. The fact that progress and transformation lie this way has always been clear. What changed was that a lot of executives and CIOs have realized the significance and the value it carries. From this regard, the virus was „good marketing” for companies involved in DevOps, as the unfortunate situation has magnified the pain points that digital transformation solves.
Q: Does this mean that the goals of 2020 have remained unchanged and have not affected the plans for 2021?
A: The plans for the year are under constant (Agile 😊) review, so of course the events of 2020 have affected 2021. In the field of IT, things change swiftly, which requires fast reactions and reassuring answers from us to our clients. Our long-term strategy, however, remains the same. We wish to provide a supported, automated solution for every point of SDLC. Our product development is aimed at making our products accessible to a growing number of customers and business fields, with growing functionality to cover more and more aspects of the application lifecycle with constant operational monitoring, feedback, and AI-based integrated decisions.
Q: Sounds exciting. Are you looking forward to the challenges of 2021?
A: Very much so. It will be enthralling. I can’t wait to open this new chapter together with our community and to expand said community with new members!