Is Development Methodologies In Financial :: essays research papers

Introduction & Overview of the conjunctionMarks and Spencers is a large UK based retailer with 683 branches in 2 continents. Following the deregulation of the UK financial sector in the mid mid-eighties the accompany decided to use its experience, capital, and brand power to branch into the profitable financial services industry offering personal loans, life insurance policy & pensions, and savings & investments services such as Unit Trusts and ISAs through the company Marks and Spencers Financial Services. Financial Services is now one of the sudden explodeing areas of Marks & Spencers, MSFS employs more than 1,400 staff at its purpose built home base in Chester, and has dedicated financial services areas in 70 M&S stores across the country. The Information Systems department has 50 employees who come from analysis, design, & programme backgrounds, much of which has been gained with Marks & Spencers plc. The majority of these employees are based in the Chester train offic e, and systems are developed &8216in-house&8217. IS projects under development include the admission of singular Savings Accounts, with other likely future projects including telephone banking, credit cards, and railcar/property insurance.The fact that MSFS has entered the Financial Services Sector comparatively recently and with a established IS knowledge base from the parent company has meant that animated information systems have been well developed in terms of engine room and are compliant with the latest industry regulations. Therefore there is lilliputian or no need for redevelopment of existing systems in the suddenly to medium term, and the ISD focus is almost exclusively on new mart areas requiring Information Systems that faeces be started from scratch. The main exceptions to this are the possibility of introducing info warehousing to tap the potential of both MSFS&8217 and the parent company&8217s client database to better target MSFS customers, and the need to adapt existing systems for the introduction of the Euro, projects which will involve redesign of existing data stores and software.The company has heavy(p) very quickly, and IS projects have consequently grown easily as can be seen by the size of the IT department. While there are notwithstanding small to medium sized projects, some that are currently be considered will be on quite a large outmatch with several senior analysts working on each project. These projects are expect to require an IT department expansion of 50% over the next two years.Although MSFS&8217 IS projects share certain common characteristics in terms of their requirements, such as the need for a common ISD structure across projects, they vary considerably in size and strategic importance, with future developments looking likely expand those differences.