At the helm of technology R&D for one of SA`s Big Four banks, Standard Bank, Janie Basson has had her eye firmly on the ball. Now she is changing focus to head up the bank`s Architecture department NEARLY THREE YEARS after Herman Singh, Standard Bank`s director of technology engineering, persuaded her to join his team as head of Technology R&D, Janie Basson is taking up another challenge. She is to head up the banking group`s IT Architecture division.

Prior to entering the banking world, Basson, an industrial engineer by profession, was consulting on the financial and business impact of technology decisions, while lecturing at the Gordon Institute of Business Science on the subjects of technology management and strategic business improvement.

In addition to finding and evaluating application for new technology at the bank, Basson was tasked with establishing Strategic Technology Projects, a new department focusing on strategic decision support regarding technology replacement and implementation.

Today, this department focuses on strategic projects touching more than one Standard Bank group company.

Heading up Technology R&D meant controlling a budget of some R20 million a year, the bulk of which is spent on maintaining a team of about 15 high-level conceptual people who spearhead the division`s various projects. These projects are then executed with the help of external consultants and vendors.

In prioritising technology R&D for the bank, Basson indicates that she was guided to a large extent by the "Gartners of this world and other research houses, as to what they perceive are the big trends to follow in banking, such as mobility both for branches and executives, and collaboration, which is a big theme for banks at the moment".

Basson was also responsible for engaging with key vendors, such as Microsoft and IBM to extract new product information and get Standard Bank onto early adopter programmes.

Some of the projects spearheaded under her leadership have been an executive mobility initiative, that is, testing, evaluating and integrating mobility solutions for executive personal information management.

Her department also provided decision support on the Linux vs. Microsoft (among others) debate in the bank`s OS/2 replacement drive, leading to the removal of this old IBM technology and facilitating the migration onto a Microsoft operating system.

The Technology R&D department also suggested the use of Virtual PC to overcome a critical constraint in the OS/2 Home Loans environment, completing the proof of concept in record time, and saving Standard Bank some R9 million.

Following the OS/2 replacement project where the bank migrated to Microsoft, and the office productivity tools project recommending Microsoft Office, Standard Bank was in a position to change its contracting agreement with Microsoft, notes Basson. She indicates that Strategic Technology Projects carried out the techno-financial decision support on the various contracting options and positioned the bank on an enterprise agreement with Microsoft. Basson`s department was also involved in Standard Bank Campus (consisting of four buildings in the Johannesburg city centre) being in the process of becoming fully WiFi enabled. Technology R&D was responsible for evaluating the various wireless options available and positioning the technology in terms of security and business drivers.

And finally, Basson and her team were involved in the current implementation of an authentication technology framework for the bank. Working closely with the IT Security department, she explains, Basson and her team formulated a matrix to indicate the appropriateness of authentication technologies on each channel. "Our recommendations were accepted and are in the process of being mplemented by business," she reports.

Basson`s new charge, the Architecture department, will have her overseeing a R50-million budget for application architecture, business process architecture, technology architecture, and related large projects in the bank. "My responsibility all along is to take a very sober look at technologies, especially from a cost benefit perspective. Our aim is not to be bleeding edge: we want proven technologies. And lately there is increasing pressure to consider what needs to be switched off, when we switch something else on, so to speak. When a project comes up for review, we have to take a holistic view of it," she explains.

"This is an exciting time to be in the IT department of a bank, particularly in South Africa. Banks are intent on adopting new technologies to drive their efficiency and achieve high levels of security, while reaching as many people as possible countrywide. We have the opportunity to make a significant impact," Basson enthuses.