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I thought it would be interesting to explore through a poll, the greatest challenges firms face in delivering an SDP project.

The poll, will be on the blog home page for a one month period, and below is some background on the questions:

Building a compelling ROI for the project

Here we are looking at the business gathering relevant internal data on client coverage, including flows by products, volumes, margins etc, that will be used to build an ROI proposition for the new platform. The challenges are around the business being able to demonstrate the improved ‘metrics’ by which the new platform will enable them to increase profits through combinations of:

Increases in: client flows, margins, internalisation of flow, client retention, client franchise, etrading/voice ratios

Reductions in: transaction costs (as flow migrates from multi dealer to the bank’s single dealer platform), sales coverage costs (as more clients are covered by more effectively by the same number of salespeople)

All of the above will affect the ROI, but of course, the business needs to be able to stand by the numbers.

Executive Sponsorship

All SDP projects require executive sponsorship from someone with authority and budget, who sits above the ‘silo politics’, and will ‘own’ the vision and the ROI. (background on this topic here)

Business & technology agreement on ‘build vs buy’

Here we are talking about the inherent tensions that exist in many firms, between the business who require functionality, and speedy time to market, against possible internal technology team interests to ‘build it here’. (background on this question is covered here)

Understanding what users really want

It’s really important to understand who your SDP is built for, and what your clients need from the platform. Many firms struggle to fully articulate and their users needs. This is where the UX design process helps through the use of persona’s workshops (background here)

Gaining consensus on front-end technology choice

The business may sometimes feel that decisions made regarding which front-end technology to use, are not always made based on what is best for end users, or performance, but may perhaps be made based on current internal skills in older technologies (background on this question is covered here in a white paper)

Keeping the project on track/in budget, from design to deployment

Here we are thinking about the challenges of keeping the project on track. Avoiding, problems such as functionality and full scope poorly defined in business requirements, leading to late changes to scope and spec, and the usual gotcha’s that arise from implementing an architecture that isn’t able to support the business requirements, which weren’t fully explored before technology decisions were made.

Other

Where none of the options reflect the challenges you face, then state the challenge your project faces in the space provided.

The poll is shown below, and you can also access the poll at top right on our home page from here

Filed under: Paul Blank, Single-Dealer Platforms, Survey Results, User Experience (UX), Web trading technology |