Client Synopsis
Access Holding/LFS (Berlin)Organisation Overview
Access Holding Microfinance AG (Access Holding), operates a network of commercial banks and microfinance institutions in Africa, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Brazil. Their target group is the general lower income strata of their respective countries with a focus on micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. The Access Holding network currently comprises ten member institutions with aggregated assets of EUR 1.4bn, over 8,000 employees and about 1.4m clients, growing by several thousand every month.
LFS Financial Systems GmbH (LFS) is an advisory and management company based in Berlin, Germany. LFS specialises in banking and financial sector projects in developing and transition countries with a focus on micro, small and medium enterprise finance. Starting as a consulting firm, LFS is today an investor and the manager of Access Holding and its network institutions. In addition, LFS provides the network institutions with the information technology platform for their business operations.
Fragile to Agile Engagement
Access Holding and its African network institutions was embarking on a 5-year transformation program for their information technology platform to support the growth and maturation of the network institutions, the digitalisation of their business models and the continued and increased generation of synergies across the network. Access Holding intended to transition the banking business applications to a centrally hosted Service Oriented Architecture platform that is provided to the network institutions in a Software-as-a-Service model.
A transformation initiative of this magnitude, not being limited to the information technology space alone, will drive change across the enterprise, particularly the alignment between in its information technology investments and its business vision. Access Holding engaged Fragile to Agile to:
- To introduce at Access Holding to a light-weight approach to Enterprise Architecture Management;
- To develop collaboratively with Access Holding a preliminary, but at its core robust, business- needs-driven technology architecture and the corresponding transformation roadmap; and
- To ascertain AccessHolding’s and the network institutions’ readiness and to describe the arrangements necessary to execute this roadmap.
F2A developed a 4-year roadmap to deliver on the Access Holding vision that was endorsed by the ownership of Access Holding and LFS but also most critically enthusiastically supported by all the banks in its network. F2A then, in a subsequent engagement, established the necessary light-weight architecture governance principles and processes to support the program which is currently being successfully executed.