BBVA’s CIO explains how the bank is making the switch to cloud-based enterprise software and services, and why industry concerns over security are not worrying him.
The financial world has always had something of an uneasy relationship with cloud computing. While consumers and some segments of the business world have embraced cloud-based services and storage, concerns over security, compliance and reliability have meant that banks have often steered clear.
But times are changing, as a glance at BBVA’s most recent technology-based undertaking shows. As part of a business-wide transformation programme designed to simplify and standardise working practices, the Spanish bank has tasked Google with providing 110,000 of its employees in 26 countries with its 'Google Docs' suite of cloud-based services, which includes e-mail, calendar, chat, video conferencing and word processing.
The deal, which is the biggest of its kind, will allow the bank’s staff to log into a ‘high-performance desktop’ from any internet-enabled computer in any location, to access and edit documents, as well as communicate with colleagues, customers and contacts.
Fitting the bill
The project has its roots in a management meeting back in May 2010, explains José Olalla, BBVA’s CIO. “We decided we wanted to offer employees the tools to simplify communication and collaboration, and make life easier for all of them. We came up with the need for a solution that could be shared all over the company, all over the world.”
With this in mind, Mr Olalla described the decision to look for a cloud-based system as “quite natural”. The search then began for technology suppliers able to meet the bank’s requirement of providing a uniform, universally accessible set of services for its employees without the need to install any additional software.
As it turned out, not many companies met the bill. “There was really only one, or two [potential providers] if you are being kind,” says Mr Olalla. “We analysed Google and Microsoft, but Google was the better solution.”
Before inking a contract, the bank moved into a trial period, slowly migrating a group of almost 1000 members of staff – based in locations ranging from Spain to Mexico and the US – monitoring reliability, security and uniformity of service as they went.
Twenty years ago, fixed telecoms were critical to banks, but not a single one would think about managing that in house. Now, video chat, e-mail and collaboration tools play the same role. It makes sense to me that those services are managed by professionals who dedicate 100% of their time to the business
The system is now being deployed across the firm, a process that has been reasonably painless so far, Mr Olalla says. “It has been quite easy; to access it you need only an internet connection and a URL.” A hybrid approach was used for migrating old data. E-mails were moved depending on user preference, and anything that was not shifted over can still be accessed conventionally via desktop.
No worries
Mr Olalla has little patience for traditional worries over allowing such services to be provided by a third party. “Twenty years ago, fixed telecoms were critical to banks, but not a single one would think about managing that in house,” he says. “Now, video chat, e-mail and collaboration tools play the same role. It makes sense to me that those services are managed by professionals who dedicate 100% of their time to the business.”
He adds that, so far, reliability is improved from the previous status quo, and that Google’s high standards of protection have set the bank’s legal and security teams’ collective minds at rest.
Having services and documents stored and provided from an off-site location could give rise to one potential issue in the short term, however – a burden on BBVA’s network infrastructure. Not that Mr Olalla is particularly concerned. “It is difficult to predict what will happen when you put these kinds of tools in place. If you store things outside you will have more traffic, but equally, if you share rather than send documents through e-mail the amount of actual data which needs to be moved around is far less.” He acknowledges that usage will require careful monitoring, but predicts that at first traffic will increase before, as users become used to the new tools, it will ease off.
In fact, one of the biggest obstacles in the entire programme is far from technical, but rather helping staff to become accustomed to the new tools at their disposal. “We always said that the greatest difficulty we would face is change management,” says Mr Olalla. “When you are familiar with the new environment, it’s very simple, but it is very, very different.” In response, BBVA has intensive pre- and post-migration training programmes in place, as well as information, videos, hints and tips on how to make the most of the Google applications available on the staff intranet.
The effort, Mr Olalla adds, will be well worth it. “We are getting new tools which we did not have access to before, and the efficiency gains from increased simplicity and time saved are huge.”
