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I.T. Case Studies
Syntel Inc. is a global I.T. services firm. We wrote these five case studies
on a freelance basis for their ad agency,
Austin Lawrence Group.
Syntel was pleased with the case studies and assigned us several more.
Saving $2
Billion Annually Through Electronic Check Processing
Check 21 Legislation and Electronic Processing
By the end of the 20th century, it had become clear that the traditional
paper-based check processing system was too slow and expensive for the
demands of modern banking. Consumer behavior, too, had changed and
growing numbers of people were using the Internet to conduct their
banking and pay their bills. Keeping up with the changing times, the
U.S. Congress passed Check 21 legislation, which, among its other
provisions, created a new negotiable instrument called a substitute
check that permitted banks to process check information electronically.
Syntel's client is a diversified financial services firm with assets of
$482 billion, serving more than 23 million customers through 6,200
locations, the Internet and other distribution channels. To comply with
Check 21, the client set up a service that enabled its commercial
customers to scan and deposit checks and perform related bookkeeping
tasks electronically from their places of business, through the firm's
proprietary Web portal. The back end of the system gathers the scanned
images and transfers them to a server where they are tested for
authenticity and approved for processing.
The client brought Syntel in to design and implement a back-end system
for the Web service that would comply with Check 21 requirements.
Challenges
The client's commercial customers, scattered across the United States,
used various scanner models from a range of vendors. Accordingly, Syntel
needed to develop a framework that could support all the scanners in
use. The scanner interface application, however, was a third-party
product that had little documentation and support, and would require the
development of ActiveX Web controls.
Once the check images were received from the scanners, the images -
along with the attendant check data - were to be transferred via the
X9.37 file format to a mainframe for processing. Syntel had to develop a
mechanism for the transfer.
A key requirement was to enhance the user experience by focusing on
utility, convenience and ease of use. Syntel was given a tight schedule
to complete the project as the client wanted to bring the Web service to
market quickly.
Syntel Solution
Syntel designed and built a suite of products that enabled customers to
perform a multitude of tasks. Client side components were developed as
ActiveX controls and could be downloaded by customers over the Web to
interact with their scanners. Customers could scan checks and coupons,
transmit the images for settlement, download scanner drivers, order
scanners and accessories online, resolve any exceptions due to issues in
scanning, reprocess the checks, generate reconciliation reports and make
GL adjustments.
As the shortened deadline loomed and tasks multiplied, the Syntel team
grew to a peak of 52 members, with 25 percent of the staff onsite and 75
percent offshore. The onsite team analyzed requirements, designed system
and user tests, and coordinated the system's implementation with the
client's technology team. Syntel's offshore team built and delivered the
system.
To ensure timely completion of the project, Syntel employed a steering
committee, project managers and leaders, supported by a status tracking,
monitoring and reporting system.
Client Benefits
The client's Web service has attracted considerable interest from
customers. More than 500 of the client's commercial customers are now
using the service, which in a short period processed one million checks
worth $9 billion in deposits. Approximately $12 million in deposits are
processed every day with the Syntel-built system.
The client estimates they are saving $2 billion annually through
electronic processing. In addition, by carrying out 75 percent of the
work offshore, Syntel delivered even more cost savings to the client.
The client also realized operational benefits. Based on Syntel's work,
the client evolved a J2EE framework that was adopted in all its Check 21
suites of applications.
"This process is central to Syntel's delivery of leading-edge depository
services to our customers," said Syntel's client manager. "The client
now has a fully integrated, home grown, 'thin-client' remote capture
application that is industry leading."
Technologies
JSP, Servlets, Struts, ActiveX, Web Services, WebLogic 8.1, Oracle 9i,
COBOL, DB2.
System Expansion
Increases Securitization Capacity by $11 Billion
One of the world's largest travel and financial services providers, with
operations in 130 countries, asked Syntel to help expand its
asset-backed securities business. The business is based on the client's
charge card receivables, which are sold to third-party trusts that sell
securities, backed by the receivables, to outside investors. It is a
AAA-rated funding vehicle.
Syntel had been involved in the securitization process of the
receivables of several of the client's charge card products and provided
production support for the business. Over the years, the company had
taken up many initiatives to reengineer the application. Responding to
the client's request, Syntel began a major rearchitecture project to
enable the addition of new portfolios to the existing securitization
process and to provide the client with an adaptive system architecture.
Shortly after Syntel initiated the project, the SEC released the final
version of Regulation AB. This regulation mandated additional
disclosures, reports and compliance requirements for issuers of
asset-backed securities. Syntel would need to include the requirements
in the redesigned system, as the existing system could not meet them.
Challenges
With 95 percent of charge card receivables already securitized, the
client's primary objective was to identify new portfolios for
securitization. However, the existing system was unable to accommodate
new products.
Apart from its limited capabilities, the system was also inflexible and
cumbersome. Making small changes took large amounts of time and effort.
Maintenance of the system diverted resources from the production of
month-end reports and the delivery of processed data to the client.
Syntel's challenge was to design a new system that could handle multiple
portfolios, require minimal maintenance, be flexible enough to generate
the reports and timely month-end closings that the business demanded,
comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and SEC requirements, and contain the records
of all the client's securitization activities.
Syntel Solution
Syntel took leadership of the project. To help the client meet its
objectives, Syntel initiated the concept of reengineering the client's
entire securitization business process. The company evaluated
alternatives and recommended the appropriate architecture roadmap for
the reengineering initiative.
To better manage the large and complex project, Syntel divided it into
three phases. The first phase would bring the system into compliance
with the client's new adaptive architecture standards by implementing a
Point of Arrival (POA) system in place of the old Point of Departure
(POD) system. This would enable the securitization of a new charge card
portfolio and overcome constraints in the existing system while adding
functionality and flexibility. The second phase would migrate charge
data to the new system, and provide various corporate and SEC Regulation
AB reports. And the third phase would complete the migration of the
lending data of new portfolios.
Syntel delivered the rearchitected system on time and with zero defects.
In the first phase, Syntel replaced the previous VSAM system with a DB2
solution. Subsequent phases include ETL processing, usage of an
enterprise reporting tool and the decommissioning of the existing POD
system.
At present, Syntel has end-to-end ownership of this client's
asset-backed securitization business. Beginning with a team of three,
Syntel's staff grew to 60 in three-and-one-half years as the client
entrusted Syntel with more responsibilities. During this time, Syntel
built a deep subject-matter expertise by rotating resources between the
onsite and offshore groups, improving knowledge transition.
Client Benefits
The new system fully meets the client's requirement for critical
month-end processing, providing accurate and reliable data. Its
scalability enables the client to venture into new areas of revenue,
such as the securitization of international and non-charge card assets.
The client can now securitize a portfolio of $11 billion in new charge
card receivables.
Data processing speeds are now 1.7 times faster than before and the
system processes 1 million accounts in 48 minutes. Technology lead-time
for securitization has been reduced from an average of two months for
existing portfolios to two days for a new portfolio.
The reduced lead-time helped the client reach an important goal. As the
Senior Vice President of the client's Treasury department commented,
without Syntel's work, "issuing from our new charge card trust on the
timeline we committed to our rating agencies would have been extremely
difficult, if not impossible."
In addition, the new system proved highly adaptable. The effort required
to support the launch of new products decreased 88 percent from the old
system. Reliability is extremely high.
Syntel delivered a higher ROI to the client by performing 70 percent of
its tasks offshore and achieving zero defects. Its performance earned it
a prestigious vendor recognition award from the client.
The client's Senior Vice President of Technology noted that the result
of the client and Syntel teams' hard work linked directly to an
important goal of the company. "It is becoming so routine that every one
expects perfect delivery every time from this team - and you do it every
time," he said.
Technologies
Mainframe batch environment: COBOL, DB2, IMS DB, VSAM, Easytrieve and
others. Reporting Tool: COGNOS.
Complying With an EU Directive on Taxation
Syntel helped a leading global financial services firm, with $9.8
trillion in assets and $1.4 trillion under management, bring three of
its European offices into compliance with a European Union (EU)
Financial Services Action Plan directive. The directive requires that
interest payments to individuals who have accounts in one EU member
state but are residents (for tax purposes) of another state be subject
to the tax laws of the latter state. Banks can either exchange
information with the taxing authority of the individual's state or
withhold taxes at the time of payment.
The Luxembourg, Ireland and United Kingdom offices of Syntel's client
chose to withhold the taxes and tasked Syntel with developing a
mainframe-based flexible and scalable application tailored to the local
requirements of the three offices. Luxembourg was chosen as the base
location to coordinate requirements and develop the application for all
three offices.
Challenges
Syntel was charged with developing an application that would:
•
Identify funds within the scope of the directive-based static setup and
funds holdings at regular intervals;
•
Extract data from fund accounting and other systems;
•
Calculate the Taxable Income per Share (TIS) daily for all funds within
the scope of the directive; and
•
Generate reports and disseminate TIS data to paying agents so they could
calculate withholding amounts.
In doing so, Syntel faced a host of disparate challenges. The funds
encompassed by the system originated from different time zones and on
different holiday schedules, complicating their processing. Further, a
single application was to be rolled out simultaneously in the three
European locations with minimal changes between locations. However,
system requirements were expected to change as the taxation directive
did not have the permanency of a law.
Finally, the client's Luxembourg office was new to outsourcing. As such,
they had no history of monitoring outsourcing requirements. Success
would require Syntel's guiding the client in developing effective
monitoring processes while working on the project.
Syntel Solution
Syntel identified six components that would accomplish the objectives:
data extraction, business rules and other static data setup,
identification of the scope of funds related to the directive, daily
calculation of TIS for all such funds, generation of reports and
transmission of the reports to their respective destinations.
Syntel built a flexible system to ensure near-simultaneous deployment at
all three client locations. The system's business rule engine enables
users to define, update or disable business rules from time to time. The
user interface is intuitive and user friendly, allowing auto fill of
business rules and static data setups. A built-in calendar ensures auto
extraction of data and processing of TIS based on the calendar setup.
Users can manually override auto processing.
Syntel developed a J2EE compliant application based on a
Syntel-proprietary framework, with a rules-based engine to ensure a
lower defect rate and better performance. This approach helped absorb
some of the changes to the EU directive without drastically affecting
the code or the implementation. A staggered, iterative approach to code
delivery enabled the early rollout of critical components, maximizing
testing opportunities and minimizing risks.
As the tax directive was expected to go through multiple revisions
during the initial phases of the installation, Syntel added a domain
expert to its team to translate and incorporate fluid requirements.
Client Benefits
Syntel's application provides the client with several advantages. Its
adaptable design enables the client to roll it out with minimal changes
to other countries at a fraction of the cost of the original
application. The intuitive user interface helps lower users' learning
curves. Through the interface, users can respond quickly to changes in
the directive and easily make adjustments to business rules themselves,
instead of waiting for technical resources to make the adjustments.
The calculation and dissemination of tax information is now automated.
As a result, the client requires a smaller operations team that works
fewer hours per week.
The application self-initiates many tasks. This leads to better
management of events such as the calculation of TIS on holidays that
occur only in parts of Europe. Consequently, there are fewer mistakes
and less need for reprocessing.
Syntel delivered the project on time and budget, with zero production
defects. The client was able to comply with the EU directive well within
the deadline, thus avoiding penalties.
Syntel continues to provide the client with post-production support,
maintaining a high level of customer service through ongoing knowledge
transfers between onsite and offshore teams.
Technologies
Sun J2EE, Websphere, Oracle 9i, IN SYNC, Unix, Windows 2000, Crystal
Reports 9.0.
# # #
Migrating Data to an Enterprise ETL Standard Leads to Savings and
Efficiency Gains
Syntel's client is a leading financial services firm with $9.8 trillion
in assets and $1.4 trillion under management, offering an array of
products and services to the global investment community.
The client's data repository group was given the task of aligning all
its legacy applications with the parent company's latest technology
standards. Alignment would require the rearchitecture of several
systems, the first of which was a reporting system that used a central
store of accounting and custody data. Syntel was chosen to carry out the
project.
The client had been using Crystal Info 7.0 to extract data at the
transactions, positions and GL levels. However, Crystal Info was being
decommissioned by its vendor. Product support was therefore costly and
difficult to find. Further, the existing application had been built by
different teams at different times, resulting in a lack of uniformity.
And although Crystal Info is primarily a reporting tool, it was being
used for ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) applications despite its
limited scalability and usability.
To overcome these issues, the client asked Syntel to migrate the data to
the client's ETL standard, DataStage.
Challenges
Many of the challenges were centered on the Crystal
Info application's
shortcomings. For instance, there was a lack of documentation on prior
development work with Crystal Info. Source code had to be analyzed and
reverse-engineered to identify requirements for future development.
Also, inconsistencies in the data, such as variations in decimal
rounding and misplaced control characters in certain fields, required
temporary code fixes so programmers could continue with further testing.
Syntel Solution
Syntel applied its data warehousing methodology as the basis for
planning and development, and delivered a complete solution, from
initiation to implementation. Syntel laid the groundwork for quality and
deliverables, rewrote Crystal Info code in DataStage PX and developed
Autosys jobs to transfer the data securely through SFTP and NDM.
The project was run in four phases:
1. Planning, which included research, assessments of data quality and
resource planning;
2. Analysis and Design, in which Syntel evaluated tools, defined
templates, created technical specifications and prepared test cases;
3. Development, including development of common elements, jobs and
scripts, functional testing and implementation of client comments; and
4. Rollout, during which Syntel executed the release plan, prepared user
manuals and documentation, and completed user training.
Each phase ended with a formal approval process with the client.
Syntel's onsite/offshore mix of 30 percent onsite and 70 percent
offshore supplemented the client's technology integration team in the
migration of the system to the new enterprise ETL tool. While the onsite
team was responsible for initial analysis, testing against production
and coordination with the client's team, the offshore group was in
charge of delivery. As this was the first time the client had outsourced
an IT project, Syntel guided the client on the development of processes
to monitor outsourcing requirements.
The Syntel-client association was enhanced by joint status calls between
offshore and onsite teams and weekly status reports from both to the
client. As Syntel's client manager observed, "There has been a good
working relationship between [the client's team] and Syntel; everyone
involved has a sense of this being one team and everyone helps one
another out."
Client Benefits
Syntel employed reusable components to build the GUI-based ETL
environment, eliminating the need to upgrade from Crystal Info 7.0 to
Crystal Enterprise 10. This saved the client the costs of buying,
programming and maintaining Crystal Enterprise 10. Moreover, Syntel
performed approximately 75 percent of its tasks offshore, further
reducing the client's costs and raising its ROI.
The new system produced more accurate and actionable data. As a result
of this successful migration, Syntel created a reliable, stable and
generic blueprint for future migrations of the client's data. In
addition, the company automated code generation, resulting in fewer
defects and the elimination of several labor-intensive tasks. Its unique
methodology enabled the client to carry out multi-site project
activities on schedule.
Syntel's client manager recognized the team's achievement in
successfully completing the project, saying, "From a technical
standpoint, this was a big event for the team, which overcame a large
number of obstacles to make this happen."
Technologies
SunOS 5.8 8-CPU Sparc SUNW Netra-T12, DataStage PX 7.5, DB2 on OS/390,
DB2 Connect, UNIX Scripting, Autosys, Crystal Info 7.0, Brio Explorer, NDM.
# # #
Testing Enterprise Applications Helps Satisfy Customer Needs
Meeting the Requirements of Institutional Investors
Providing financial services to institutional investors requires IT
systems that run flawlessly while performing complex and intricate
tasks. Syntel's client, a leading global financial services firm, serves
institutional customers through a suite of applications that validate
and enrich each customer's data according to the customer's own process
logic. The data is then stored in an electronic warehouse where it is
accessed by the firm's customers and adapted to their needs.
It is a sophisticated system, made up of 11 applications that the client
uses to power the daily transactions of many world-renowned banks and
insurance companies. The applications include trade order management
systems, transaction managers, trade reporting systems, data
repositories, accounting and general ledger systems, a data warehouse,
and auditing and ETL (extract, transform and load) tools.
The flagship application is a portfolio record keeping system (RKS) that
Syntel had done some development work on for one of the client's
business groups. RKS records and accounts for all investment activity in
a portfolio and interfaces with other systems for data entry and export.
Shortly after it was built, it was transferred to the SQA (software
quality assurance) department.
A Training Assignment Turns Into a Testing Project
Acknowledging Syntel's expertise with RKS and more importantly its
functionality, the client asked Syntel to train the SQA staff on the
application. As the training progressed, the client was so impressed
with Syntel's execution that it assigned the company the task of testing
customer requirements and enhancements the client had made to RKS and
some other applications. Subsequently, the client expanded the project
to cover the testing of all 11 applications.
Challenges
The number of processes and environments to be tested in the assigned
timeframe presented a challenge. Besides, the firm's customers had
varying requirements for each application and needed their data to
comply with different sets of rules. This added more layers of
complexity to the project.
As the applications had been created over a period of time and then
transferred to the SQA department, documentation was scarce. Syntel
therefore reverse engineered each application and analyzed the output to
understand the roles of various scenarios in reaching desired results.
Further, for end-to-end and spot testing, Syntel had to generate valid
business data to simulate real-world conditions.
Finally, several customers altered their timelines as their requirements
changed at various stages of the project. This led to revisions in setup
dates for testing, which affected the overall project plan.
Syntel Solution
Syntel applied its knowledge of software testing methodologies and
tools, using its advanced project management systems to streamline
workflows. Its services covered functional, regression, user acceptance,
performance and automation testing.
To save time, Syntel ran its testing cycle parallel to its software
development. The company used its proprietary test management tool,
SynAppTool (TM), which facilitates process compliance across several
testing projects and teams. Syntel also drew on its suite of test cases
and ready-to-test business scenarios of order and trade management
systems for testing futures, options, forwards, swaps and foreign
exchange contracts.
Equally important, Syntel's project team included professionally
certified domain experts with hands-on experience in the investment and
security fields. Their rich investment banking history helped Syntel
gain a deep understanding of key client processes, including those of
the flagship RKS.
Client Benefits
Syntel's structured approach reassured the client that the testing was
thorough and that the client was supplying robust systems to its
customers. The client's confidence in and knowledge of its processes
rose and it was better able to respond to its customers' requirements
and delivery schedules. In particular, the client obtained new insights
into its RKS operation and into data exports from RKS to its electronic
data warehouse.
Syntel moved 90 percent of its tasks offshore, saving the client 20
percent in project expenses. The time difference between onsite and
offshore locations sped up the project's delivery.
With 60 team members supporting the client, Syntel has full
responsibility for the testing operation. The client spends little or no
time on supervision. In addition, the client now has Syntel available to
test new customer requirements as they come up. This has enabled it to
save on personnel and training costs.
Technologies
Rational Robot, XML, proprietary tools for business-level functional
testing.
# # #
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