The message from TransAct2004

TRANSACT 2004, a seminar oganised by Network Magazine in association with Sun Microsystems demonstrated that manageability is what IT heads are looking for nowadays.

Manageability is the latest buzzword in financial circles. CTOs (chief technology officers) and CIOs (chief information officers) are demanding a single console from which they can manage their entire network ecosystem. This, in addition to the demand for reduced operational costs and higher quality of management, has opened new vistas for the technology provider—so solution providers are vying with each other to cater to these demands.

This was the clear message that was brought across at TransAct2004.

Speaking at the event, Seema Ambastha, solutions manager, Technologies, Oracle India said that banks today have moved into terabytes of data. And while the cost of administration has reached never-before levels, failures have become unacceptable. This makes manageability of paramount importance.

Adding to this, Valsan Ponnachath, general manager, Finance Industry, Sun, said that administration of remote offices and branches, maintenance and upgrade logistics, user mobility and desktop security are issues that account for a bank’s overall TCO (total cost of ownership). This is where Sun’s thin-client technology comes into play. According to Ponnachath, a bank in Spain was able to achieve 47 percent lower TCO by using thin-clients.

Other speakers at the event included Sunil Chandiramani, partner, Ernst & Young; Rajesh Gosain, consultant, Reuters India; Gautam Bandyopadhyay, product consultant, Infosys; and Julian Gordon, director, Financial Services, Sun.

Chandiramani spoke about how IT has grown to become a lifeline of the BFSI business. He advised CIOs and CTOs to be farsighted and take the correct decision on a technology so that when it is finally offered, it is the technology that customers really want.

Risk management was another key area of concern for most technology managers working in the BFSI sector. It has become imperative for banks to look beyond common market risks at operational risks. According to Gordon, operational risks mostly happen due to failed internal processes.

Gosain, on the other hand, said that a silo approach to risk management will increase complexity, while the use of the Basel II guidelines will lead to an enterprise-wide approach.

Bandyopadhyay talked about the use of various BFSI-focused solutions that allow a company to do better business. He also spoke about Web-enabled applications and IT systems for managing productivity.

TransAct2004 provided the technology managers who attended the event solutions in the fields of security, risk management, storage, asset management, core banking applications and branch banking, all of which are transforming business transactions today. Most financial institutions are currently in the process of building up IT infrastructures. The seminar was especially useful for them since it provided a number of essential guidelines and strategies.

Julian Gordon, director, Financial Services, Sun Microsystems	Valsan Ponnachath, general manager, Finance Industry, Sun	Gautam Bandyopadhyay, product consultant, Infosys