EPAM Building 700 Person Strong ODC in CIS for a Leading Global Investment Bank

A leading global investment bank with a strong presence in Europe, the USA, Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia.

A leading global investment bank was looking to expand and consolidate its IT capacity cost effectively in an Offshore location that could effectively serve its EU, US, and APAC markets. They were looking for a partner that could handle application development and testing (Build the Bank), as well as provide Application Management and Production Management (Run the Bank), across the full spectrum of their financial business lines. This included business critical applications from front to back office functions across all product areas:

• Cash/Equity Derivatives
• Risk
• Credit
• Fixed Income
• Commodities
• FX
• Prime Services
• Investment Banking

Given the nature and scope of the Company’s requirements EPAM was the chosen partner based upon:

• Our maturity in engineering, allowing us to engage in building teams and solutions rather than just provide staff augmentation
• Our experience within Financial Services (including real senior practitioners from the Capital Markets industry)
• Our position as the number one IT outsourcer in the CEE region, advantaged by the size of its talent pool, its proximity to key European business centers, and its position mid-way between Asian and American markets
• Our unmatched record of rapidly building significant Offshore Delivery Centers (ODC’s) in the CEE region

EPAM’s long experience tapping in to the talent and infrastructure of CEE provided the Company with the confidence they needed to move ahead with building a large scale center in the CIS region. Together, we built out an ODC that grew to over 300 people in its first 12 months, and continues to expand aggressively in line with the Company’s target goals.

The current team in our “Run the Bank” operation at the ODC covers Application Management and Production Support. In addition to expanding our own existing support capacity EPAM was able to draw on strong connections with local business schools to quickly build training programs for bright graduates with the right credentials to become successful support professionals.

Today the Application Management team there is made up of about 180 people handling Level 0, Level 1, and Level 2 operations including:

• System and Application Monitoring
• Incident/ Problem Management
• SLA / OLA Management
• Security Requirement & Environment Management
• Change / Release Management
• Business Continuity Management
• Capacity / Performance Management
• Level 1 IT Support for production systems

All support processes in place at the ODC are ITIL v.3 compliant. The team has established well-defined procedures for new applications on boarding, and have built out and maintained mature support documentation for all existing applications and services.

The 120 person strong “Build the Bank” team, focusing on Application Development & Testing at the new ODC, have deep experience with a range of key technology sets:

• Java, .NET, C++, ETL, Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server
• Domain specific skills including Quant support development (Functional Frameworks) and FIX specialists
• HP Test Centre, QTP, Automation Testing
• Client Proprietary tools and frameworks

Within the first year of the engagement, EPAM was able to:

• Build the most advanced and secure IT development and support facility in the CIS region for the Company
• Build up the largest and most comprehensive “Run the Bank” operation in the region (at 180+ people) supporting all of the Company’s required markets and products
• Develop a 24X7 Level 1 support infrastructure for front to back office applications, managing over 30,000 incidents per month
• Hire and on-board over 300 people from the local markets – the fastest ramp up ever in the region

EPAM now serves all of the Company’s business areas for their offices in the Americas, EMEA and APAC, providing them with comprehensive Application Development, Application Testing, and Application Management Services. As a result of this effort, the Company is well on its way to achieving their goal of significant reductions in the “cost per head” of their IT services, without any reduction in quality or responsiveness.