The global banking industry is going through a period of fundamental change that is forcing participants to manage risks adeptly while reducing costs and positioning for emerging opportunities. This requires not only the right processes and talent but also support from key applications that enable productivity, controllership and innovation.
Here is how Mindtree helped a North American bank providing commercial and private banking services overhaul its testing function through a managed services model for lower cost and greater responsiveness.
The challenge
The customer faced challenges in managing testing activities, knowledge management and optimization to improve cost and quality assurance (QA) cycle times. They lacked the ability to conduct testing with a high degree of flexibility. Specific issues included:
- High testing costs
- High licensing fees
- Poorly supported legacy applications
- Poor time to market
The customer was therefore looking for a testing partner with domain and testing expertise. They required specialized capabilities in test automation, performance and mobile testing. Mindtree was chosen to help them optimize cost of testing and time to market.
Our solution
Mindtree proposed a managed services model to support the customer’s end goals. With the customer's concurrence, we transitioned from a resource supply model that is based predominantly on staff augmentation to one that includes managed services.
Solution highlights
- Conducted disciplined knowledge and planning phase for a successful transition
- Led multi-stage transition and governance phase where Mindtree progressively took on greater responsibility, eventually assuming management control of an entirely offshored function
- Instituted core and flexible team concepts
- Put in place robust governance mechanism with clearly defined communication, escalation and management paths
- Conducted end-to-end testing services covering functional, regression, automation, and specialized testing services
- Launched Knowledge Management and learning initiatives to retain knowledge within the team
- Managed test function bringing independent validation of quality
- Established a Service Delivery mechanism defined on 17 Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for optimum queue management and service excellence
- Established a capacity planning & service request fulfillment workflow
- Took a systematic approach to manage compliance to banking regulation
- Facilitated leadership exchanges for strategic thinking
- Focused on banking domain certification, KMAP-driven knowledge management, leadership trainings
Business impact
- 27% cost saving
- 36% year-on-year improvement in time to market
- Continuous improvement in testing maturity for quality with efficiency
- More than USD 50,000 in annual savings from automation alone
