TORONTO – August 25, 2011
The IT executives in the financial services industry often meet to discuss their respective operations and share information on an informal basis. They realized a more collaborative and formal approach to such discussions would be a significant benefit. Recognizing this opportunity, the Manta Group established a formal benchmarking group within the financial services sector in 2009. Collaborating on common challenges in a formal environment delivered significant value to the participants. This dialogue has led IT executives to realize that they are often facing similar challenges in running, managing and improving their day to day operations.
Each organization now has the ability to compare themselves against their peers as well as industry best practices. The forum allows for sharing, learning and targeting of initiatives that contribute to improved performance across the member organizations.
“After a decade of formal best practice adoption, organizations should now be in a position to benefit from formal benchmarking,” says Will O’Brien, Partner and CEO of The Manta Group. “Companies can employ benchmarking and best practices to improve their IT processes and reduce costs, by embedding the exercise in continual improvement initiatives.”
The Manta Group was chosen by the current members to facilitate and chair the forum, as they recognized the importance of having a neutral third party with relevant subject matter expertise. In addition, as the custodian of the data, Manta assures the integrity of the metrics, data analysis and privacy. The external viewpoint and research from the broader community that Manta also bring to the forum, enables an objective analysis of the data against best practices.
In general, the benchmarking reveals that members are committed to improving IT operations through implementation of standard processes and controls within their organizations, leveraging best practices to do so. The degree to which processes have been implemented successfully to date varies across each participant. Key factors including scale, complexity, organizational structure and degrees of outsourcing are all criteria that impact the scope and depth to which standard practices have been implemented and perceived as delivering value.
About The Manta Group
The Manta Group is a management consulting firm focused on optimizing, transforming and improving the performance of IT organizations. Manta’s solutions encompass Strategy and Planning, Portfolio Management, Business Service Management and Governance Risk and Compliance. The Manta Group helps clients transform their business to better align with corporate goals and objectives, while reducing the risk of investing in IT and enabling better management of the IT investment.
