Founded over 30 years ago, our client has grown to become one of the leading technology driven businesses in the US Financial Services (FS) industry. As one of the top 10 banks in the US, and a leading credit card issuer, it has built a strong reputation as a technology first company.
A need for continuous innovation
Our client wanted to maintain their position and reputation in an industry that’s currently undergoing major transformation. Staying competitive was essential, as was the ability to develop new digital products, adopt emerging technologies, and further enhance the customer experience.
The big challenge was innovation at scale. With over 50,000 employees, this bank knew that adopting new technologies would come with complexity. It needed to ensure seamless technology integration with existing systems, while adhering to strict regulatory requirements.
A tech strategy roadmap
In 2023, our client asked us to provide a market scan and a software delivery life cycle review and recommendations for its DevEx and Developer Productivity initiatives based on our FS industry knowledge and global client experiences of high-value GenAI tools and techniques.
We recognized GenAI’s potential to offer significant improvements to Engineering Effectiveness that can decrease complexity, increase the quality and reduce cycle time of software delivery and experimentation of innovative software products. Adoption of GenAI technologies in software delivery would enable our client to remain at the forefront of FS innovation.
We helped our client to envision the adoption of AI-enabled software engineering for its internal developers, and identify potential use cases to deliver maximum value. We also helped our client to develop an operating model to leverage the continual and rapid technological advancements in Gen AI.
Approach and delivery
Just one month into the engagement, Thoughtworks delivered an interim Market Scan Report. At the end of the engagement, we delivered a 97-page final report with an updated Market Scan.
The report included a configurable roadmap for the GenAI initiatives proposed in the report. Based on feedback from the client, we designed a module-oriented roadmap so that foundational modules could be planned for reuse across multiple capabilities. The modularization approach allowed for certain capabilities to be delivered earlier on in the roadmap, compared to a traditional approach involving linear prioritization.
The foundational capabilities spanned the following technology and organizational domains:
Identity and Access Management
Internal systems API integration
Data Engineering
Development / Deployment Feedback Loops
Conversational UX
Data Security
Software Architecture
Lightweight UI Framework
We also provided high-level guidance around how to safely and ethically roll out Generative AI tooling in our client’s organization. This included:
Guardrails policy: Mirroring Thoughtworks’ internal approach to GenAI adoption, we set out the key requirements for a policy that would limit the degree of latitude in GenAI adoption while still allowing experimentation.
Product role: we recommended that our client define a new role to own the GenAI initiatives recommended in the report. Having a single owner ensures a single point-of-accountability, which is critical given the level of impact the GenAI initiatives are expected to make.
GenAI portal: We recommended a GenAI Portal that would provide observability and control around how GenAI is used, while at the same time enabling experimentation and discovery across our client’s organization.
As part of the project, Thoughtworks also delivered a series of group working sessions including:
Value proposition
Adoption mapping
Tooling demos
Checkpoints
Alignment
Pairing sessions
Impact delivered
The client’s business outcomes were predicated on the report recommendations being carried out.
Thoughtworks delivered a thorough roadmap of actionable opportunities tailored to the client. The impact was a faster time to delivery and discoverability of product impacts through more effective engineering practices and software delivery.
Our client is now in the process of executing on the strategy and roadmap we provided in the final report, and using the market scan to inform their decisions around GenAI tooling adoption.
