How slow!?

Those of you working in technology in FSI, I’m sure, are already aware how slow it can be to adopt new technology not already in the company.

Last year I thought I’d try and quantify how much slower it is. So I did a little experiment. A client of ours was adopting Azure and as part of the work for one application it required running an instance of some open source software on Azure. Pretty simple brief, start with nothing, obtain an Azure subscription, spin up a VM, install, configure and run a FOSS product.

I started by doing the above within the confines of HMx Labs (including signing up HMx Labs for Azure as we were not using it at the time). The whole process took an afternoon or so. Let’s be generous and say one day.

I then repeated this on the client’s network, starting by obtaining an Azure subscription for this particular application and then completing the steps as per the above. The client had already adopted Azure. They had a process in place for obtaining a subscription.

How long do you think it took to perform the same exercise within the confines of an FSI client’s network? Twice as long? 10 times as long?

 If asked prior to this to how much of an impact FSI bureaucracy has on technology adoption I would have guessed in that range. Things take somewhere between twice and ten times as long. 

It took over three months.

That’s a factor of 100 times longer.

At this level of impediment to adopting new technology it simply isn’t viable anymore to try anything new. No wonder then really that banking technology is where it is today.

That quantification of the delay was a large input into the development of COREx. An attempt to validate new technology decisions for our clients without the 100 fold increase in timelines and cost.