In four years time Rabo Mobiel has grown from a start-up to a mature organisation. Speed and innovation were the key words in the beginning. Now cost control and risk management are the most important requirements. The development of Rabo Mobiel has also strongly influenced its collaboration with vendors. Schuberg Philis is one of these vendors, being Rabo Mobiel’s IT outsourcing provider from the very start. At first the two companies were involved in a classic customer-supplier relationship. Currently, Rabo Mobiel and Schuberg Philis enjoy the benefits of a real partnership, a partnership that works on all levels. This partnership goes beyond personal relations; the contract also plays a crucial part. Naomi Bisschop (general director Rabo Mobiel), Marco van Velthoven (director IS Rabo Mobiel) and Maarten Ahlrichs (vendor manager Rabo Mobiel) give their view on the development of this unique partnership.
In October 2006 Rabo Mobiel, a brand new Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), was a fact. Rabo Mobiel was formed and built in just six months. This incredible speed remained crucial for the MVNO in the following years. The Dutch telecom market is extremely competitive: new developments, bundle deals and offers emerge on a daily basis. It is imperative for a new telecom company to react quickly in order to establish a position.
Outsourcingpartners
As MVNO, Rabo Mobiel doesn’t need to have its own telecom network: at first, the company utilized the network of telecom operator Orange. Later on, Rabo Mobiel turned to KPN, the leading telecommunications provider in The Netherlands, for the use of their network. Rabo Mobiel also outsourced its IT environment. Schuberg Philis took responsibility for the IT-infrastructure of Rabo Mobiel and all running applications: the website, web shop, provisioning (connecting new customers), billing and the customer contact centre.
At first sight, Schuberg Philis didn’t seem to be the most likely partner for Rabo Mobiel, since the company is primarily focused on developing and managing mission critical IT infrastructures. Schuberg Philis promises customers 100% functional availability: this applies not only to database systems, but also to that what really matters to customers: the availability of mission critical applications. These applications ensure companies growth possibilities, effective business methods and optimal customer care.
However, the Rabo Mobiel IT environment was everything but mission critical, especially in the first few years. For example, the downtime cost of the website was very acceptable. Nevertheless, Rabo Mobiel selected Schuberg Philis as its IT outsourcing provider. This choice was based on something that was very important to parent company Rabobank, one of the largest banks in the Netherlands: Rabo Mobiel also served Rabobank customers and therefore needed a connection to the secure backoffice systems of Rabobank to retrieve customer information. This connection was only allowed to be created between two parties: the internal ICT-organisation of Rabobank (Groep ICT) or Schuberg Philis. Because Schuberg Philis offered a more tailor-made solution, the partnership between the two companies became a fact.
Speed versus risk management
Speed versus risk management – there is continuous tension between these two aspects. Risk management relies heavily on testing new functionality before it goes live. But solid testing takes time, and there is only so much delay a fast moving telephone company can permit. This area of tension surely resulted in some friction between Rabo Mobiel and Schuberg Philis.
To enable new software functionality in a live environment, Schuberg Philis utilizes the well known DTAP-street: Development, Testing, Acceptance and Production. Because Schuberg takes full responsibility for the integrity and availability of the IT-infrastructure, including all running applications, the company is very strict: there is extensive testing before new changes and releases make their way to Acceptance en Production. And once Production is reached, it is impossible for anyone to even touch the system unannounced. This way Schuberg Philis can – and will – guarantee the availability of the IT-infrastructure and all related applications. The benefits are obvious. This working method offers the customer more reliability, while changes can be implemented quickly and safely. Despite these benefits, the pace of introducing new changes and releases was often still too slow for Rabo Mobiel in its start-up years.
Marco van Velthoven of Rabo Mobiel: “Schuberg Philis generally requires all testing to take place before applications go live. However, during our start-up phase we would rather skip testing because new software had to go live instantly. And this wasn’t just occasionally. Every two or three weeks we introduced new campaigns, services and functionality. The goal was straightforward: customer growth. We needed to stay on top of every development in the market and in order to do so, we had to continuously implement changes and releases on our website, in the database or our backoffice systems.”
Maarten Ahlrichs, vendor manager at Rabo Mobiel and responsible for the management of Schuberg Philis, adds: “When you skip testing, you increase the chance that something goes wrong. And when this happened, our software suppliers had to be able to fix things in the production environment. This is exactly the opposite of the way Schuberg Philis normally works. They are on top of risk management, including tracking and tracing of every single change in the IT infrastructure and running applications. And they should, it is a good thing. But in our case it caused some friction. We were pressing engineers to increase the pace. Our general attitude was: we need things done yesterday, not today.”
Contract renewal
After four years, the contract between Schuberg Philis and Rabo Mobiel ended. This was the time for both parties to pause and evaluate: potential contract renewal demanded some serious thinking.
Once again there were two options: Rabobank Groep ICT and Schuberg Philis,” explains Marco Van Velthoven, director IS at Rabobank. “It was clear Schuberg Philis still had the best cards, there was a better match with our situation and specific demands. Furthermore, continuity in our IT environment was on top of our wish list. Especially since we had gone through such tremendous developments in the years before. On top of that, Schuberg Philis had developed an excellent track record in the previous four years: they are able to live up to their promise of 100% availability.”
Meanwhile Rabo Mobiel had entered a different phase. With a stabile base of 200,000 customers, the company was able to focus on developing and expanding the mobile financial channel. To this end, Rabo Mobiel closely collaborates with its parent company Rabobank, in order to offer customers truly integrated banking. During this phase it was time for Rabo Mobiel to structure its organisation as well as its relations with suppliers.
We informed Schuberg Philis that we were ready for a more controlled and procedural working method,” says Marco van Velthoven. “It sounded like music to their ears.”
General director Naomi Bisschop adds: “In the first years we were very demanding because of the difficult circumstances at that time. But at the end the work still has to be done by people. It is practically impossible to keep pushing the limits. Our organisation reached a new phase and therefore we were able to leverage our partnership to a different level.”
Vendor manager Maarten Ahlrichs adds: “Right now, there’s a true collaboration, within Rabo Mobiel (with marketing and sales) as well as with our vendors. Planning of new functionality now involves all parties. Once a month we implement changes and releases. The result is great for the software vendors and for the engineers at Schuberg Philis. Now they have more time to test the software in collaboration with the developers and with us. The quality of the software as well as the stability of the IT environment have improved drastically. Furthermore, Schuberg Philis now communicates structurally with our other partners, CDRator and The People’s Valley in particular. CDRator develops software solutions for MVNO billing and customer service. TPV is responsible for our online marketing and communication. They also develop functionality for our web shop, action websites customer service portal.”
Naomi Bisschop emphasizes the role of the new contract. “In this phase, cost management is very important to us, so we asked Schuberg Philis to participate in the thinking process. Schuberg Philis presented a solution matching our focus on improved structural and procedural working. Schuberg Philis charges a fixed monthly fee. Because we, at first, demanded lots of ad hoc changes and releases, Rabo Mobiel was a time consuming customer for them. Therefore we jointly set up some criteria. If we meet these criteria, we receive a discount on our monthly fee. This not only contributes to cost management, it’s also a good measurement for the quality within our organization: if our release management is below par, it shows directly in the costs. At this moment in time, we are more focused on doing things right the first time around. Repairing is a waste of energy and money.”
Structural meetings
Rabo Mobiel, Schuberg Philis and the other partners involved nowadays enjoy the benefits of structural meetings at different times and at different levels.
Operational review meeting
Every week Maarten Ahlrichs of Rabo Mobiel and the Schuberg Philis lead engineer for Rabo Mobiel review the availability of the systems: has it been 100 per cent? They also discuss current improvement routes en projects. This forms the input for the monthly service rapport.
Tactical meeting
Once every quarter Marco van Velthoven of Rabo Mobiel meets with the Customer Operations Manager at Schuberg Philis. Primary focus of this meeting is risk management. Which risks are there and with what measures can these risks be reduced to an absolute minimum?
Elephant meeting
Once every quarter Rabo Mobiel and Schuberg Philis meet with all vendors. During this meeting they discuss the complete IT landscape of Rabo Mobiel. This landscape interfaces with more than fifteen external parties: obviously with Rabobank and KPN, but also with parties that are responsible for logistics and payment. Vendors like CDRator, TPV, Microsoft, Sun and Cisco deliver the software and hardware. The coherence within the IT landscape is very important and directly influences performance. Every quarter all possible issues are thoroughly reviewed. In the beginning the meetings consumed half a day. Now, they require a time investment of just two hours.
Strategical meeting
Once every six months Rabo Mobiel and Schuberg Philis evaluate the strategy of Rabo Mobiel at board level. They take a close look at the implications for the IT architecture. Which steps does Rabo Mobiel need to take in the architecture to become the standard for mobile financial services? During this meeting both companies also look at the future. Does Rabo Mobiel need a different IT outsourcing partner after 2011 or not? If so, which steps are necessary to smoothen the transition?
Risk management
Rabo Mobiel is not to be confused with Rabobank, but it does serve Rabobank customers. This has implications for the quality level: these customers expect a high level of quality of Rabo Mobiel concerning availability and security. Therefore, risk management is an important area of focus. Rabo Mobiel has defined the risks in three areas.
1. Integrity of customer data
The integrity of customer data is crucial; therefore it is safe guarded by the use of a random reader: without this reader, Rabo Mobiel customers are unable to place orders and access information. Furthermore, Schuberg Philis is ISO certified and thanks to its certified ticket system everything is traceable and audit proof.
2. Interfaces with Rabobank backoffice systems
The interfaces with Rabobank need to be completely secure. Schuberg Philis is the only external party that complies to the strong security standards set by Rabobank. Therefore it is the only external party that has access to the backoffice systems of the bank. The company has also been subject to an audit, conducted by Rabobank Groep ICT.
3. Availability of the database
The highest risk factor are possible inconsistencies in the database, causing Rabo Mobiel to lose order information or customer data. Therefore Schuberg Philis has made the operation of the database redundant, and it has recently renewed the backup system. With these measures the risk factor has been reduced to zero.
Results
We judge Schuberg Philis primarily on availability of our systems, which is perfect,” says Marco van Velthoven, Director IS at Rabo Mobiel. “We also evaluate Schuberg Philis’ level of attention during releases and check to see if resources are available in time. Everything goes very smooth, as well as our own performance. In the past quarter we have met all our criteria and achieved maximum incentive from Schuberg Philis. It makes the business case for this IT outsourcing agreement very clear.”
Naomi Bisschop continues: “Schuberg Philis is not the cheapest party in the market; outsourcing to Schuberg Philis takes a big chunk out of our budget. But Schuberg Philis offers security. In terms of a MVNO we may be living a life of luxury, but our customers expect a high level of quality – just because Rabo is in our name. Our IT environment is one of the basics that need to be top notch. This determines how successful we can be as Rabo Mobiel.”
