A universal bank with operations in retail, wholesale and investment banking, as well as wealth management, mortgage lending and credit cards. Operations in over 50 countries and territories with around 48 million customers and 250k employees.
The UK Headquartered Engineering and Infrastructure product teams were seen as disconnected from the customers and colleagues they sought to serve. The bank’s Infrastructure Technology organisation were found not to be adequately engaged with other internal teams to provide a collaborative view of current and planned service offerings. Colleagues and clients were unclear and felt disengaged from the future direction Technology was taking and how they were investing.
There was a need to illustrate industry leading technology and provide real life examples of what the future could hold to gain effective feedback, support and engagement. The key goals of the Tech Expo was to “bring to life” concepts and innovative technology for colleagues to try, interact with and provide feedback on.
Astute IT resources co-ordinated and led the delivery of multiple infrastructure Tech Expo events staged across four global hubs – London, Manchester, New York and Singapore.
Utilising a strong blend of leadership, and influencing skills, partnered with proven vendor and event management/ presentation skills, Astute IT resources assembled a team from existing internal resource from across the organisation to successfully showcase key products, current infrastructure services and technology products of the future.
To ensure that attendees long-term expectations would be met a policy was set to only showcase products that would be delivered within one year. Implementing the “cool factor” was encouraged as long as it was realistic and provided business and colleague benefit. Vendor participation was encouraged with an agreement that their partnership was to support the engagement showcasing the latest technology and not to be seen as just another sales opportunity.
Thirty Technology Engineering and Service Delivery resources combined efforts to deliver four international Tech Expo events with over 3,300 attendees from business and technology teams in the UK alone. Attendees commented on how it was the most effective technology event ever held, putting a face and realism to the previously impenetrable infrastructure organisation.
The image and exposure of the infrastructure organisation within the bank was transformed. Clients and infrastructure teams were for the first time centrally engaged and able to understand both the journey technology was embarking on and the part each other had to play.
Ultimately, Infrastructure Technology was seen as a value-add service partner rather than the previous view of a function with disparate products, teams and resources.
