A new Avanade survey of CIOs and IT leaders reveals worrying trends in financial sector applications. Reduced productivity (64 per cent), increased employee frustration (46 per cent) and reduced quality of work (46 per cent) are the top three perils of poorly designed and integrated applications.

The study also highlights that these risks are now on the rise due to a large and growing number of unsupported applications across legacy platforms. “High performing, mission critical applications are vital across all aspects of finance from the trade floor to online banking, yet blind spots in application strategy are introducing risks that will ultimately lead to increased costs and loss of revenue,” says Nic Merriman, CTO of Financial Services at Avanade UK. “In terms of legacy infrastructure, Windows XP in particular hosts a number of business critical applications at risk today, from those that have operated under the radar of IT, to others seen as too costly to migrate to modern platforms. The emergence of multi-device application environments, resulting from a demand by top execs who want to be able to work in the way that best suits their needs, is also introducing similar and entirely new legacy risks. However, if financial sector CIOs are able to implement a more holistic approach for application development and maintenance, not only will they prevent future legacy issues but also more confidently adapt business processes to embrace these new mobile and consumer technologies that are transforming their workplace.”

With only 14 months to go until the end of Windows XP support, 56 per cent of financial sector firms do not have formal plans for how to address what will quickly become a legacy problem – one which accounts on average for 49 per cent of enterprise desktop infrastructures in these organisations today. The lack of a business case is cited as the key barrier to Windows XP application migration in 84 per cent of these organisations. Hence large volumes of unsupported applications post-Windows XP are a concern for 88 per cent of CIOs and IT leaders.

The survey also looked at the fast emerging trend of Bring Your Own App (BYOA), in which line of business managers are purchasing applications such as Software-as-a-Service that are not directly provisioned by IT. According to the respondents, BYOA is already present in 18 per cent of financial institutions today and growing to 72 per cent by 2015. However, with 33 per cent BYOAs in these enterprises already unsupported by IT, there is another looming gap in application strategy.

“Increased regulation is placing significant strain on the financial sector firms so issues such as who is held accountable for a specific application, will only raise further question marks. According to 96 per cent of IT leaders in financial services organisations surveyed, application accountability will intensify their problems with application strategy, and at an average cost of £1.39m per annum,” Merriman says. “Financial sector CIOs must understand that in order to be successful it is about tough transformation and execution. For example, when introducing a new application such as a new customer facing service, the first step is to understand why the original application needs improving or changing, and the value this will deliver to the organisation. It is then important to assess this against any remediation effort, and the impact of a new application. Only then can a decision be made. Real advantage comes in having the ability to make the assessment process quick, and develop a model for remediation or replacement."

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