As the first publicly listed commercial bank in New China, the stock code of "00 1" established SDB's leading position in China's securities industry. Maybe the focus is on securities, maybe the limelight of the stock market covers up other aspects. When China Merchants Bank traveled all over China with one card, SDB's reputation remained stagnant in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Until IT came out that SDB signed the first 300 million-yuan disaster recovery outsourcing bill of China banking industry, and didn't care about the bank's talent discovery, SDB inadvertently won the first place in IT outsourcing in China, attracting a lot of attention that had been lost in the whole country, but SDB was unwilling to make more voices about it.
Integrators who transform into IT services are very happy, because they see the future development direction and more sustainable business. Everyone thinks that IT outsourcing in banking industry is the general trend, and the root of disaster recovery outsourcing can be investigated, which is somewhat inevitable for SDB. As a small and medium-sized banking enterprise, SDB pays more attention to commercial interests. By outsourcing the IT construction of disaster recovery, a non-core business, SDB seems to have lost some control over disaster recovery projects. More or less, big banks are still a little worried about the security of commercial data centers, but SDB doesn't have much scruples about it. After all, the complete and mature disaster recovery technology can relieve some worries of banks, and the outsourcing project with less investment and quick results has won SDB a valuable opportunity of informationization at the operational level.
Looking at the whole IT outsourcing market of banks, integrators always don't understand why banks are always willing to work hard for informatization alone. The relationship between financial services and IT applications, and between banks and IT enterprises has been very close after years of running-in, but banks always exclude integrators from the edge of their core business.
Big banks don't want to lose control of IT systems, and system integrators, who are troubled by three key issues: technical reserve, trust mechanism and cost accounting, have been unable to convince banks. Obviously, in order to improve the stickiness to bank customers, integrators need to make long-term efforts in many aspects. Perhaps this long-term agreement on IT outsourcing of the first domestic bank lacks a sensational effect because it is far from the core of the bank's business. Perhaps because SDB is a small and medium-sized bank, this does not mean that the service market in this field will be opened. However, the project reduced the IT burden of SDB and benefited Levin. For the highly competitive banking industry, IT outsourcing is no longer a simple gain and loss issue. When integrators start a new round of efforts to improve their strength, both sides follow the win-win law of modern business.
SDB and Levin: Who has made greater strides?
Levin signed a $300 million disaster recovery backup outsourcing service contract of SDB and won the first IT outsourcing contract in China. This is a new development of Levin's business model, and companies that are optimistic about IT outsourcing also believe that it is not easy to achieve such results. But "first" does not necessarily have the same important significance. After all, the technology of disaster recovery is relatively mature, which is far from the core business outsourcing of banks. Stripping off the dazzling coat of "first" and "big order", the project itself is more enlightening.
Although IT outsourcing is regarded as one of the future profit directions by the industry, before SDB signed a disaster recovery backup outsourcing service contract with Levin Technology, how big an IT outsourcing project can be has always been a difficult problem for most IT manufacturers in China. Until the middle of 10, the first domestic IT system outsourcing contract was released: Levin Data Center and Shenzhen Development signed a contract to provide disaster backup outsourcing services in 10, with a total amount of about 300 million. As soon as the news came out, the banking industry, IT industry and consulting industry expressed their views one after another. Although their positions and starting points determine their differences, they still convey a consistent view that SDB has started outsourcing from the business or quasi-business level, which is undoubtedly a new trend in the industry.
Zhang Bingcheng, general manager of Levin IWC Computer System Co., Ltd., the direct participant of this "major project", revealed: At present, the disaster recovery system has been put into use, with good response and great influence in the industry. However, SDB is negotiating with Xinqiao Holdings on equity transfer, which is an extraordinary period. At the request of customers, it is not convenient to disclose more details about this first domestic IT outsourcing bill.
However, according to informed sources, in order to win this project, Levin worked hard for nearly two years and also "talked for nearly two years". It can be seen that this cooperation between the two parties laid the foundation when Levin made the core business system and front business system for SDB in 2000.
In the process of developing and implementing the core business system for SDB, Levin actually put forward the idea of persuading SDB to outsource disaster recovery business. "Because after centralization, safety is the first priority, and SDB will immediately consider the maintenance of disaster backup systems. In fact, these investments will be very large. If SDB does its own disaster preparedness, the investment in optical equipment in 10 may be more than 300 million. " Levin saw the pain of SDB as a small and medium-sized bank and seized the opportunity to publicize the benefits of outsourcing IT to SDB. "IT happened that Levin was considering establishing an outsourcing company at that time, so we made a feasibility analysis and input-output analysis for SDB, telling them which ones were suitable for IT outsourcing and which ones were not. During this period, we communicated for about two years and finally decided on the outsourcing model. " The company he mentioned is Levin Wanguo Computer System Co., Ltd., which is now in Shenzhen Development Building, which also proves from the side that the birth of Levin Wanguo is really related to the big customer of Shenzhen Development.
After winning the list of SDB 300 million yuan, Levin naturally has the confidence to speak, and regards it as a breakthrough in the informationization and outsourcing development of the entire banking industry. The person said, "I think this should be the first case in the industry. The previous outsourcing was just a maintenance at most. In terms of business outsourcing, this is the first one I know. "
In fact, IT's not just Levin who is happy for this project, because seeing the hope of IT outsourcing in the banking industry, industry enterprises have euphemistically expressed their appreciation for Levin. Zhan Bin, executive general manager of Gao Weida Software Technology Co., Ltd., which focuses on banking, said: "From the perspective of peers, I think what Levin has done is very rare. Although we have been talking about outsourcing, in fact, domestic banks are very cautious in choosing outsourcing enterprises. As far as I know, domestic banks have never outsourced disaster recovery before. Levin can gain the trust of SDB, and it is not easy to give him the list, which requires strong technical strength. "
In sharp contrast to the optimism of IT companies in the financial field, it is the analysts of consulting companies. Their consistent calm analysis and prudent speculation seem to pour cold water on the enthusiasm of manufacturers, but they also show people that there are still many uncertain factors behind this "IT outsourcing first order". Analyst Wang Qingyu of Analysys estimates that the 10 year contract signed by Levin and SDB may be a segmented agreement, that is, "within a certain period of time, both parties will sign an intentional agreement or contract, and then do it according to the specifications stipulated in the contract every year. Moreover, signing the contract does not mean that Levin will definitely earn 300 million yuan from this project after 10 years. " . Yu Yang, president and chief consultant of Analysys Consulting, said: "This list is of little significance. According to foreign precedents, it is difficult to guarantee that the implementation process will not be interrupted with the change of market situation. This contract is more about cooperation intention, that is, under the same conditions, it promises to give priority to the services provided by Levin, but it does not rule out that SDB may turn to other service providers if the services fail to meet the requirements of customers, or the price exceeds the budget, or with the changes in the market environment. "
Due to the special industry characteristics of banks-safety first, the progress of IT outsourcing of domestic banks, especially several major state-owned banks, has been very slow. The expansion of this "industry first order" in outsourcing also has boundaries. According to people familiar with the matter, this "has not reached the step of business process outsourcing (BTO)". SDB pays for renting equipment, but Levin won't get their business data, but only provides equipment and equipment management. In other words, Levin, who owns the system password, is responsible for system maintenance, while SDB encrypts the business password including the information of major customers. Levin won't take the initiative to get this password, one is to avoid suspicion, and the other is that it is useless for Levin to get it. "
Technically, the backup function is an indispensable disaster recovery system for banks, so Zhan Bin of Gao Weida thinks: "For banks, disaster recovery is not an application, but an IT means, which requires an understanding of infrastructure, system environment, software and hardware." Wang Qingyu more directly denied the statement that this project belongs to outsourcing. "Simply put, this is just a backup without any processing, so for the trading system, such a data center does not involve the business itself."
Disaster recovery: the starting point and end point of IT outsourcing?
Policy restrictions, internal systems and security considerations make IT outsourcing always linger on the edge of banking business. Banks have cooperated with IT vendors for many years, but IT companies that are optimistic about the financial market just can't get the core big orders of domestic big banks. Even if Levin makes a breakthrough, the "substitution" role of integrators may last for many years.
Banks have been calling for outsourcing for several years, but the big move that really attracts attention has never appeared. The reason is not difficult to understand. Besides the obvious technical level constraints, there are also some factors of the banking industry itself that cannot be ignored. Zhan Bin, executive general manager of Gao Weida, believes that an important reason for the slow development of the outsourcing market is the policy issue. "Many behaviors of the financial industry, especially state-owned commercial banks, are subject to policy constraints." The four major state-owned commercial banks have not adopted the form of outsourcing. Wang Qingyu, an analyst at Analysys Consulting, also holds the same view when talking about bank outsourcing. "The budgets of state-owned banks are all allocations, not commercial expenditures, so they will be more cautious in this regard."
In addition, the traditional banking industry has always adhered to the rule of "maintaining complete internal control". Domestic powerful big banks generally believe that for security reasons, the core information technology must be in their own hands, and outsourcing may lead to corporate leaks. IT is understood that although many large domestic banks now let some business and IT services be done by providers, such cooperation is mostly confined to the periphery of enterprise information technology, such as hosting servers and data centers. At present, no one dares to outsource their business operations.
In other words, big banks with deep pockets don't care about raising another technical department, as Wang Qingyu said, "From the perspective of the state-owned banks with the largest assets, it is difficult to guarantee the security of outsourcing, because the outsourcing market is still immature today. If outsourcing is adopted, the cost and energy spent by banks in evaluating outsourcing is not as great as that of their own construction, which is one of the reasons why they have been holding back so far. " An example is that ICBC has established a large-scale software development center in Zhuhai South Software Park. This 500-person team is responsible for ICBC's own software research and development. According to Qiu Shi, director of the Municipal Science and Technology Bureau, the software center of ICBC creates hundreds of millions of output value every year.
In the lonely outsourcing market of China's banking industry, Levin's exploration naturally attracted the attention of the system integration industry, and SDB has also become a pioneer in the banking industry's attempt to outsource. As the saying goes, "a small boat is easy to turn around", and the insiders believe that SDB's non-state-owned background and relatively small scale are the important reasons why it can eat crabs first. For emerging commercial banks like SDB, what they need to do is to bring products and services to the market through standardized means as soon as possible. The risk of outsourcing still exists, but because these banks are relatively small, the cost of evaluating outsourcing risk is likely to be less than that of self-built platforms, so it is more likely to choose outsourcing. According to relevant sources, "If SDB prepares for disasters by itself, the investment in optical equipment in 10 may exceed 300 million", which is an important reason why SDB finally chooses to outsource.
In fact, although banks have money, costs and benefits must be considered, so banks of different sizes have adopted different considerations and ideas in the construction of disaster recovery centers. Jia Ceng, deputy technical director of Huaxia Bank, said: "The four major state-owned commercial banks can build their own disaster recovery centers because of their capital and data advantages. However, it is difficult for small and medium-sized commercial banks to build their own disaster recovery centers, and it is a better way to jointly build them by several financial enterprises. Guo Lian, Information Center of China Development Bank, also revealed at the 3rd China Financial Informatization Development Forum that China Development Bank is cooperating with Huaxia Bank, Minsheng Bank and China Everbright Bank to develop a remote disaster recovery system, and the design has been completed. Whether CITIC Industrial Bank will participate is uncertain. It can be seen that the flexible practices of small and medium-sized banks allow system integrators to see more opportunities. Zhan Bin is very optimistic about the outsourcing market of small and medium-sized banks. " Small and medium-sized banks, such as commercial banks in medium-sized cities and credit cooperatives all over the country, should develop faster in the future. There are hundreds of medium-sized cities in China, and the demand is still great. As for the four major state-owned banks, there will be no big moves in outsourcing in the near future; As far as I know, big banks like CITIC and Pudong Development Bank have not outsourced. "
After the problem of who will pack is solved, we are faced with "what to pack". This time, it was contracted out by SDB.
The "disaster recovery center" is important in the industry, but it does not involve the core business of banks. "The data center is not a complex business, but just a mirror image. What is really complicated is the management of retail, loan and credit card business processes within the bank. This kind of IT management is a technology involving the internal business processes of banks.
Perhaps it is precisely because of its strong technical background and simple identity that does not involve core business that disaster recovery center has become the first choice for banks to be suspicious and eager to try when facing outsourcing. Of course, disaster preparedness is not the only choice for banks. What will be the next package after the hole is opened?
In Zhan Bin's view, in addition to the disaster recovery center, there are also emerging customer service centers and online banking. As for other systems related to the core business of banks, such as deposit and withdrawal, lending and so on. It is unlikely to be outsourced at present. Wang Qingyu believes that telephone banking can also be realized by outsourcing, which is actually making a phone call.
A variant of Center is to connect the transaction system in the back office of the bank with the call center, which is easy to realize through outsourcing. Due to well-known reasons, the possibility of outsourcing the core business system of domestic banks is still very small. The outsourcing of disaster recovery center may be just a small event in the process of outsourcing, but from the perspective of banking, it seems to be a very difficult start. With the beginning, the next development is possible.
"IT socket": unable to connect the supply and demand ends.
When the IT outsourcing of foreign banks has reached the advanced stage of "on-demand purchase" and "on-demand use", domestic system integrators are still busy taking orders everywhere. Large banks have tried, but in the end it is difficult to solve three key problems: technical reserve, trust mechanism and cost accounting. IT is these that cause the distance between integrators and real IT outsourcing.
Banking is one of the earliest industries in China that came into contact with information technology. Judging from the financial strength and application scale, it seems to be an ideal market. According to statistics, the financial industry accounts for more than a quarter of the domestic IT service market, and IT is increasing by more than 40% every year, becoming the largest buyer of domestic IT services. Chen Jing, director of the Science and Technology Department of the People's Bank of China, once pointed out in public that due to the imperfection of the current legal system and credit system, as well as the competitive relationship between commercial banks, it is not mature enough to adopt custody, outsourcing and co-construction, but this should be the general direction of bank development.
The general direction is clear and the market scale is attractive, but there seems to be no clear route for outsourcing. Now it seems that some people who think they are outsourcing are still a long way from real outsourcing.
Yuan Bo, CEO of Levin, said many times in recent years that outsourcing services should include two levels. One is that customers outsource some non-mainstream businesses in order to reduce costs and improve efficiency; The other is strategic alliance, in which customers and outsourcers form an alliance, even including deep cooperation such as mergers and acquisitions and capital operation, and finally achieve a win-win situation through outsourcing services. According to this standard, there are very few banks engaged in outsourcing in China.
According to Yu Yang, president of Analysys Consulting, most people in China are still doing pure IT applications, such as desktop response, the most basic software and hardware support and maintenance, and the deeper outsourcing should be BTO (business)
trade
Outsourcing is business process outsourcing, and the content of this outsourcing is a part of customer-oriented business process. Unisys, for example, handles checks for many big banks in the world. At present, no bank in China has outsourced the handling of such bills to others.
An IT outsourcing contract signed by American Express and IBM in February this year, which is valid for seven years and worth as much as $4 billion, represents the development trend of IT outsourcing in the financial sector. Although the contract between American Express and IBM is huge, it is more noteworthy that this contract adopts the "on-demand charging method".
Demand) ". It is completely different from the previous fixed price model, and it is a more flexible "buy on demand" pricing method. According to the change of business, American Express can expand and contract the use of IBM services at any time, and pay according to the usage.
In Yang's view, the latest outsourcing development trend is public utilities.
Computing or public computing is a further extension of outsourcing. In the future, enterprises from all walks of life can acquire IT capabilities through an "IT socket" when needed, and pay as needed, just like monthly utilities. This can't even be called outsourcing, because you don't have to think about outsourcing contracts anymore, but leave the whole thing to the service provider. "
For international banks, the benefits of outsourcing are tangible, but the IT outsourcing of domestic banks is not as smooth as that of foreign counterparts. Wang Shenke, deputy director of the Science and Technology Department of China Construction Bank, said that their first concern was cost. "How much does outsourcing cost?
? For example, Mitsubishi Bank of Japan can take out a few percent of its turnover or profit every year, so that IBM,
EDS has gone to do outsourcing service. However, the decision-makers of domestic banks feel that the outsourcing cost is too high, so they oppose the outsourcing cost. The second is the concern about the reputation of outsourcing service providers. "The service and quality of outsourcers, and even some changes in outsourcers themselves, may cause changes in the whole business of banks." As soon as we tried, two worrying problems appeared. The leaders in charge saw that the effect was not very good and lacked confidence. "
Technology, talent, business and capital: Integrators break through everywhere. In order to strengthen the adhesion to banks, integrators have been working hard from different angles. Gao Weida's internal staff reported that in order to cooperate deeply with Citibank, the dress of technicians must first meet international standards. This is indeed a news worthy of the collective attention of the banking industry and integrators. In addition to abundant funds, the perfect financial business and leading IT application of international banks must be valued more by integrators who strive to do IT services.
For banks, external
The package has obtained the professional skills of IT vendors and saved the management cost. For system integrators, outsourcing has enabled them to achieve the long-term development they dream of, which is exactly what they are striving for. At present, domestic large-scale system integrators are caught in the same "project cycle". Large integrators usually do large projects, and a huge technical team needs extremely high labor costs. If there are not enough projects in a year, the staff will fluctuate and the income will fluctuate obviously. At present, all integrators are faced with such a situation, which is very hard and risky. To get rid of excessive dependence on projects, profitable and long-term stable IT outsourcing seems to be the unanimous choice of system integrators.
It seems to be a win-win situation, but compared with the vigorous development of foreign markets, domestic bank outsourcing is still "unsatisfactory". Faced with this gap, the bank bluntly pointed out that the low technical level of domestic manufacturers is the reason why they can't package it. Liu Jingfang, deputy director of the Office of Information Technology and Development Committee of China Construction Bank, said: "The outsourcing mode is mainly considered from the perspectives of reducing costs, obtaining professional services, quickly launching products and insufficient learning knowledge. But at present, domestic IT vendors do not have this ability, so banks have to do it themselves. "
The embarrassment of falling behind others in technology always makes domestic system integrators feel a little emboldened when talking about outsourcing. Yuan Bo has always believed that outsourcing service is a development trend, but at present, all aspects are not mature enough; Zhan Bin said bluntly: "Outsourcing is the best development prospect among all IT services, but it is also the most difficult to sell. Outsourcing requires customers to have high trust in you, and you must have strong technical strength to win this trust. Frankly speaking, I think there are not many enterprises with this strength in China at present. Because banks basically use IBM mainframe systems, the technical requirements are very high; However, few domestic enterprises are familiar with UNIX system and know IBM mainframe technology. At least for now, I haven't seen a technically mature enterprise. "
Integrators who see attractive "cheese" will certainly not wait. Although the policy and technical problems may not be solved overnight, at least we can have a deeper understanding of the industry. Integrators have indeed reached out to attract talents in the banking industry. I hope this is not fishing in troubled waters.
Yuan Bo, CEO of Levin, once said that the difference between outsourcing services and system integration is that system integration is at the technical or information level, while outsourcing services are mostly at the business level. System integration is to help customers complete a certain task according to a certain technology of customers or after forming a business idea; Outsourcing is to determine what to achieve from the customer's business level. In order to achieve this goal, the means to achieve this goal are outsourced to another company. Therefore, outsourcing is an organic combination of business and technology, which requires a very accurate grasp of the industry. This step is the most difficult threshold to cross. To this end, system integrators are moving closer to the largest customer bank in various ways.
Levin is famous for spending money in the industry. In Levin's view, it is worthwhile to spend money to dig people from banks, especially senior talents who understand business. Even the vice president of Standard Chartered Bank was recruited by Levin. Many executives in IT vendors such as Lenovo who value the financial industry also have banking experience.
The technicians in Gao Weida have now put on suits and ties. A technician who asked not to be named called it "in line with international standards". Upon inquiry, he revealed that "Gao Weida is now cooperating with Citibank, and Citigroup will invest in Gao Weida". Regarding this news, Gao Weida Marketing Department said that it is not yet possible to disclose which international bank is talking about investment. But obviously, if the partner is Citigroup, Gao Weida will get more than money. After all, Citigroup's understanding of banking business and its industry-leading it application for many years may benefit this system integrator who aims at the IT service market. From these signs, it can be seen that in order to understand the bank more deeply, system integrators are trying to integrate into the bank's business as experts. What they are doing now is to "know yourself and know yourself".
The optimistic view is that after five years, the scale of China Bank's outsourcing market will reach 654.38+000 billion; It is also said that the outsourcing market will take shape when China enters the top 500 enterprises. If so, there is not much time left for integrators.