ALIGNING BUSINESS AND IT WITH METADATA - THE FINANCIAL SERVICES WAY

Financial services institutions like international banks and insurance companies frequently need to adapt to changes in their environments, yet manage risk and ensure regulatory compliance.
The author Hans Wegener reveals how metadata can be used to achieve a successful and technological evolution.
This unique approach is divided into three parts to:
Explain how metadata can be used to increase an organization's ability to adopt changes
Outline the peculiarities of financial corporations and how they affect value creation and solution design
Present the practical side of effectively managing metadata and sustaining long term success
Wegener firstly illustrates the peculiarities of both metadata management and the financial services industry. He combines both, puts them into context of use, and explains where and how this makes life difficult, as well as where and how value is created. This enables the reader to understand the impact of metadata management on his/her organization, its typical side effects, necessities, and benefits.
The book then goes onto reveal how different crosscutting concerns managed in large financial corporations (change, risk, and compliance management) can revolutionize business by supporting them with metadata management. This provides a blueprint to be used in strategic planning. Finally, the mechanics of three important practical areas are discussed in-depth, namely managing evolution, quality, and sustainability. This provides helpful scripts for practitioners to be used in real-life.

Hans Wegener is a Member of Management in the Group Information & Process Architecture team at Swiss Re’s corporate headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland. He has worked in the financial services industry since 1997, covering both major banking (Swiss Bank Corporation, UBS, Credit Suisse) and insurance institutions (Swiss Re). He has designed numerous metadata solutions in these companies and results of his work were published at various international conferences and workshops.

Foreword.
Preface.
Acknowledgements.
1 Introduction.
2 The Role of Metadata in Supporting Change.
3 Aligning Business and IT: the Role of Metadata, Strategy and Architecture.
4 Improving Performance.
5 Managing Risk.
6 Ensuring Compliance.
7 Evolution: a Practical Guide.
8 Quality: Achieving and Maintaining Valuable Metadata.
9 Sustainability: Ownership, Awareness, Understanding, and Politics.
10 Parting Words: Institutionalizing Change Management.
Index