Altus

With the Internet everywhere and a business that’s all about information flow, it is not surprising to find Financial Service companies investing in technology to make it flow faster. But for all the standards and STP initiatives, there is still an awful lot of paper flowing around.

As our Products team will tell you, the paper won’t disappear just because you manage to digitise and electronically transmit the data that’s on it. To really get the most out of STP you also need to think hard about the business processes at either end of the pipe.

Many documents, for example, go through subtle approval stages with their own business logic which often spawns more spreadsheets and paper trails. Then there are the physical constraints on who can send the information - with veiled security and audit implications for any automated solution. And what about all those little notes that get scribbled on the fax to explain what’s between the lines.

To make STP really work you need to follow an approach that considers both the flow of information between the various parties and the business processes that generate and consume it. Dataflow diagrams and process maps are the tools of choice but they need to be used carefully. Dataflow modelling has been around a long time but there’s still considerable judgement involved in exploring the flows; how significant are specific product features, what about currency, does timing matter. Drawing a “correct” BPMN process map is getting easier these days thanks to tool support but no tool can check whether you’ve asked those little detail questions that reveal the nuances of a process; “who can do that step?”, “does that need approval?”, “what if it’s rejected?”.

The only reliable tools we know of for ensuring that the necessary level of rigour is applied are experience and review – both prominent features of the Altus Consultancy approach. For some examples of how we do things, click on the links to the right.