Archive for the ‘Personnel’ Category

Specchio, Specchio…

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

By Mark P. Dangelo

www.Innovative-Relevance.com

One of my mentors used to tell me this story as a humbling, learning lesson.  A few years back, one of our American presidents was on a PR campaign.  He was visiting a nursing home.  He met a man walking down the hallway and went over and shook his hand.  He said, “Do you know who I am?”  The man looked at the president, but did not recognize him.  He replied, “No I don’t sir, but if you ask one of the nurses maybe they can tell you.”  

Contemplation is a humbling experience.  If you ask the right sequence and series of questions, sometimes, just sometimes, business and technological innovation can surface in the strangest ways.  The relevance of innovation is frequently revealed amidst the failures of our past. 

Recently, I was asked by a group of potential investors what I thought were the top business and technological questions on the minds of mortgage / FSI executives – what encompasses their innovation and survival agendas.  Listed below are a few of the categories and questions that came from these rigorous reviews in our struggle to frame relevant innovation.

·         Customer and Privacy:  The consumer is vanishing — so where are they going?  What effectiveness can be realized, sustained and made adaptable?  Do we really have a product and service strategy that makes sense?

·         Personnel:  Do we have the skill sets of yesterday or the ones needed for tomorrow?  How will we find and retain those personnel that can lead us forward with a strategy yet to be crystallized?  Can our personnel be revitalized and reeducated?  How?

·         e-Strategy:  With all the coverage and euphoria on e-solutions, what makes the most business sense for our firm?  What will it take to achieve and at what cost?  Can the return be sustained and made into a competitive distinction for advantage and profit?  Can mortgage processes assimilate orchestration improvements from the trading world (e.g., SIA, DTC, STP, T+n, FIX, exchanges)? 

·         Process:  How can we holistically examine the processes from end-to-end and remove those that are archaic and non-value added?  How can technology be used as a catalyst to ensure efficiency and rigor?  Do we even know what processes we must develop to meet the changing market, consumer and regulatory demands?

·         Sourcing / Outsourcing:  With labor arbitrage no longer the driving force, what are the criteria needed for selection and on-boarding?  What will be involved with knowledge processes in terms of transition, transformation or governance?  What will “level 3” rigor and insight provide as we begin to commoditize ITO and BPO offerings?   Will travel, security, privacy and public sentiment deliver a new operating mix?

·         Regulatory Compliance:  Can SOX and Basel lessons learned be utilized to create an integrated operational compliance solution addressing current and proposed guidelines?  How can we avoid costly “one-off” solutions and vendor relationships?  Where can we find knowledgeable guidance?

·         Orchestration:  How can orchestration, driven by manufacturing techniques, provide a transformation and restructuring agenda?  Do we know how to orchestrate as compared to simple integration?  Do we possess the innovators and new thought leaders, or are we just using old practices with new labels?

·         Architecture:  What are the iterative blueprints for catalyst change?  Are they cohesively identified and modeled?  What disciplines and methods are we using and are their better ones that we must consider?  How do ITIL, SaaS, widgets, SOA, and the rest of the “alphabet soup” of acronyms fit into the mix? 

·         Infrastructure:  What is it really costing us for the value returned?  Does it conform to the architectural strategy and models or are we divergent from planning to execution?  How can it be “ever-greened” without a “lift and shift” or total replacement?  Who do we trust?  What are the real life-cycle costs? 

·         Data and Standards:  What is the totality of our data and how can it be used?  Are standards useful or part of the “old guard” dogma influenced by aging ideals?  How can we manage the vast array of disparate data types and sources for documents, reporting, integration, investors, legal reviews, and compliance?  What will it cost?

·         Due Diligence, Risk Management, and Legal Representation:  In good times, IT due diligence consumed 1% to 3% of budget – what will a caustic operating environment inflict on marginal pressures?  Do our legal practices and practitioners represent our “best face forward” or are we inflicting even greater damage on our brand and reputation with existing loss mitigation and foreclosure practices?  Should we treat the AG’s (attorney generals) as foe or embrace the need for change – compromise?  How much “fraud” has been endured and taken into our portfolios within the CDO / MBS instruments?

·         Competency and Investment:  What centers of competency need to be expanded or developed for new market practices and offerings?  With top line revenue evaporating, LOC frozen, and PE ratios at historic lows, how can we be expected to reinvent ourselves without sufficient capital?  Moreover, what infrastructure is even demanded given the legacy environment already in place?  Should we outsource anything not deemed to be core? 

·         Community:  The housing indices point to communities and homeowners in complete disarray (e.g., Shiller, MBA), so how will our actions be aligned with the “right thing to do” and our ability to stay in business?  How can we embrace not-for-profits and community activists without incurring additional liabilities or negative coverage? 

So why did I frame these particular questions?

Just nine months ago we thought everyone knew us and respected us.  Our leaders were icons of success.  Our solutions revered by the establishments, our support teams, and those that sought to acquire our operations.  When asked by consumers, investors, and politicians, many individuals and organizations thought they knew us – we were evidently someone else.  Today, we are like the story.  No one is sure who we are and we’re not sure how innovations (e.g., process, business and technical) can be used for offerings we must possess – if we only knew what they were. 

We cannot be like the old CIO who once said, “You start coding, and I’ll go figure out what they want.”  So when you contemplate your next move, review that next system, or determine your next series of layoffs, ask yourself, “Am I asking the right questions for the new business and economic realities?”

If you are wondering about the title, it is Italian for “Mirror, Mirror.”

Posted in Analytics, Data, Financial Instruments, Innovation, Outsourcing, Personnel, Process, Strategy | No Comments »

Surviving our Mortgage Industry’s Technological Renaissance

Monday, June 9th, 2008

Technology.  It is a funny sounding word with widespread connotations across an increasingly sophisticated, global base of consumers.  For many of us, Mortgage Technology has more precise denotations surrounding offerings such as AVM, “e” products and solutions, fraud, contact centers, SaaS, SOA, Web 2.x, ITIL, .NET, and the list goes on.  It gains further precision when we add in interoperable standards from MISMO, Adobe, and platform defacto leadership products within our discrete operating environments.  In fact, one can argue that the collective solution set advancements we have witnessed in the last 18 months have been greater than the preceding decade.

Yet, for many decision makers placing their organizational growth and personal careers on the line there is escalating doubt on how these increasingly ubiquitous and commodity like offerings provide lasting competitive and market distinction.  Whether we have been part of an enterprise or point-based implementation program or just read about it, many of us know the perils and unknowns that confront adoption of new or even enhanced mortgage technology solution sets.  We know the failure rates – both as buyers and vendors alike.  So what does it all mean and what talent is required?

Whereas IT philosophers have raised these points on numerous occasions, we seldom move beyond the shock-driven headlines and into the root causes of both failures and the need for continuous innovation.  In a recently published Financial Times article entitled “America cannot afford to drive away talent,” Bob Greifeld, CEO of Nasdaq OMX wrote that he believed our immigration visa approach resulted in, “… policies that drive away the talented young leaders we need to keep the US at the heart of the 21st century.”  Bill Gates echoed a similar dissatisfaction with the H-1B lottery approach (163,000 applicants and 85,000 visas) in March 2008 much to the subsequent displeasure of various domestic organizations.

Some have passionately argued that the acceleration of outsourcing and loss of technology workforces since the post-9/11 events have been a direct result of U.S. visa restrictions.  Others argue that these losses are an outcome of worker rebalancing driven by globalization and the retiring of the domestic baby boomer population.  A few have even placed the challenges and failures at the footsteps of technology education, corporate training initiatives, professional instruction, and IT and association certification programs. 

My personal belief is if we holistically examine the ever-increasing complex technology approaches, these simplistic, siloed classifications no longer work.  Why?  With our specialized offerings now entrenched in data-driven, standards-influenced solution sets, the “blame” for failure and the “recipe” for success cannot be tagged to a single, dogmatic taxonomy.  Multi-faceted revitalization approaches will be required.

Mark Twain was correct, “rumors of ‘our’ death have been greatly exaggerated.”  The media coverage of our pain and the consumer plight is relentless –we are not dead, but in renewal.  As an industry we are, I believe, at the beginning a new mortgage industry technological renaissance.  As time flows into 2009, our renaissance will be one that embraces global workers, data-driven compartmentalized electronic processes, and cross-domain technologies, while at the same time revitalizing and reeducating American workforces.  Our need for adaptive and aggressive technological education will continue regardless of whether you are domestic, or in India, China, even South America.

Technology is indeed a funny and sometimes confusing word.  But unlike the Luddites, we will not be able avoid it as a new technological renaissance dawns.  After all, without superiorly educated and trained technical personnel, how can we innovate, compete, and grow in an increasingly “flat world?”

So what do you believe are the educational and professional challenges facing the “new” mortgage technologists?  Does the salvation of domestic workforces reside with protectionism or with redevelopment of existing workers impacted by layoffs, bankruptcies, and corporate closings?  Is outsourcing (i.e., ITO, BPO and KPO) a bane for professional development and retention, or is it just an option for technical innovation and orchestrated change?  What skill sets are the most important when you look forward?

 

Posted in Business Model, Consumer, Continuous Organizational Innovation, Financial Instruments, Financial Services, Industry, Innovation, Mortgage, Personnel | No Comments »