Technology cost optimisation at a large global bank
3,000 applications mapped to 525 business capabilities. $102M saved in two years.
- $102Msaved in two years
- 34xreturn on a $3M fee
- 525capabilities, six systems each on average
- 20% to 46%adoption of shared solutions across countries
Situation
IT budgets in the billions, rising every year, with no clear account of where the money went or what it bought. More than 3,000 applications, many doing the same job in different countries. Budgets set by adding a few percent to last year, which suits nothing about SaaS contracts or project milestones. And a first-mover disadvantage: the team that built a reusable platform paid for all of it, while everyone else used it for free. The CTO wanted "champion solutions", global platforms deployed across regions, instead of one system per market.
What we did
We mapped the 3,000 applications to 525 business capabilities. On average each capability was served by six systems, which is what duplication looks like when you can finally see it. As one of our team said, "Before the capability model, teams had no way to know if someone else had already built a solution to their problem."
Then we put the model to work in governance. Project approval now required a team to show why no existing system could do the job; a better new system had to come with a migration and decommissioning plan for the old ones. Multiple versions of the Kondor treasury system ran in different markets: we found $3M of operating cost and consolidated them on one global platform. A monthly intake captured reuse and savings, finance validated them, and a dashboard compared business units. As one of our team put it, "CIOs didn't want to be the only one without a green marker on the dashboard." Finally, the cost of a champion solution was spread across the years and the units that used it, and the teams that built them got recognition and more resources.
Result
$102M of savings in two years from rationalisation, reuse and consolidated global services, on a $3M engagement: 34 times the fee. Adoption of shared solutions across countries rose from 20% to 46%. After the early wins the bank raised its own target to a $50M a year stretch goal. Smaller markets got technology they could never have afforded alone, and IT stopped being argued about as a cost centre.
What it took
A capability model that finance trusted enough to build into approvals. Governance with teeth. A dashboard every CIO could see. And a way to pay for shared platforms that stopped punishing the team that built them.