In recent years, the building society’s IT transformation has been heavily influenced by a major IT project focused on modernizing the core banking system based on SAP S/4HANA. The data sets available there regarding home savings customers and their contracts are used and processed by various IT applications, such as those in the Marketing, Sales, and Processing departments. With the SAP S/4HANA transformation, action was needed to ensure that information stored in SAP in the future would continue to be available to field staff and sales applications.
In recent years, the building society’s IT transformation has been heavily influenced by a major IT project focused on modernizing the core banking system based on SAP S/4HANA. The data sets available there regarding home savings customers and their contracts are used and processed by various IT applications, such as those in the Marketing, Sales, and Processing departments. With the SAP S/4HANA transformation, action was needed to ensure that information stored in SAP in the future would continue to be available to field staff and sales applications.
To optimize the architectural landscape and business processes and ensure their long-term sustainability, a central data platform was therefore created as part of the Operational Data Store (ODS) project. Built on the SAP HANA platform, this solution consolidates all customer-related information from various sources and distributes the necessary data—at the required level of detail—to target systems. The downstream systems use the data as part of the customer journey and for analytical evaluations.
For this project, the building society selected CAS AG as its IT service provider, having already recognized the company’s in-depth expertise in core banking transformation projects on SAP S/4HANA from the project to modernize the core banking system. As an SAP Focus Partner for Financial Services, CAS AG not only has many years of extensive experience from a wide variety of client projects at banks, but also possesses the necessary expertise to evaluate and classify different architectural approaches in the context of SAP HANA, as well as to integrate modern technologies and systems into existing IT landscapes.
During the evaluation phase, we worked with consultants from CAS AG to analyze the impact of the core banking system transformation on the legacy systems. To address the resulting need for action, the various options related to SAP HANA were examined. However, none of the solutions available on the market met the requirements.
“A major advantage is near-real-time availability and performance when handling large volumes of data; this means that data will be available very quickly in the future, reflecting all changes made—for example, for the CRM system,” says Isabelle Reick, Enterprise Architect at Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG.
The ODS central data platform consolidates all structured information related to the building society’s customers from various source systems and distributes it to various destination systems, including the CRM system and the data lake. ODS acts as a so-called decoupling layer, which relieves the core banking system of direct access requests from these systems. To this end, the data for the systems being phased out is prepared accordingly and made available centrally. By historicizing the data, the entire lifecycle of a data record is mapped out, allowing systems with different requirements to retrieve the data without any problems.
It was a challenge for the small, agile project team—composed of in-house members from Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG and specialists from CAS AG— was not only the multitude of requirements and constant changes related to system integration and data provision, but also the sudden shift to 100% remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a lack of immediate, direct communication, particularly when it came to developing shared ideas and concepts. By implementing technical solutions—such as ways to use flipcharts on screen even during online collaboration—and by taking a flexible approach to addressing the new circumstances when working on topics, the project team was able to successfully adapt to the changed situation. The group now meets regularly every few weeks in Schwäbisch Hall. Then, specific topics are tackled collaboratively, technical challenges are resolved, and the team itself is strengthened as a result.
The project team was also able to overcome the challenges posed by the still relatively new SAP HANA XSA (SAP HANA Extended Application Services Advanced Model) technology. “I’m pleased that, as a team, we’re solving problems with creative approaches to achieve our goals. The team isn’t afraid to dive right in, even when dealing with difficult issues,” says Isabelle Reick, who is responsible for the project at Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG. “Thanks to the data model we developed ourselves, we were able to very quickly make data available to the first systems with the initial release.”
The project was launched in late 2019 and has since integrated all customer and contract data from the new SAP S/4HANA core banking system in real time. Going forward, the focus will be on expanding data provision for existing and future systems.
To optimize the architectural landscape and business processes and ensure their long-term sustainability, a central data platform was therefore created as part of the Operational Data Store (ODS) project. Built on the SAP HANA platform, this solution consolidates all customer-related information from various sources and distributes the necessary data—at the required level of detail—to target systems. The downstream systems use the data as part of the customer journey and for analytical evaluations.
For this project, the building society selected CAS AG as its IT service provider, having already recognized the company’s in-depth expertise in core banking transformation projects on SAP S/4HANA from the project to modernize the core banking system. As an SAP Focus Partner for Financial Services, CAS AG not only has many years of extensive experience from a wide variety of client projects at banks, but also possesses the necessary expertise to evaluate and classify different architectural approaches in the context of SAP HANA, as well as to integrate modern technologies and systems into existing IT landscapes.
During the evaluation phase, we worked with consultants from CAS AG to analyze the impact of the core banking system transformation on the legacy systems. To address the resulting need for action, the various options related to SAP HANA were examined. However, none of the solutions available on the market met the requirements.
“A major advantage is near-real-time availability and performance when handling large volumes of data; this means that, in the future, the data—including all changes made—will be available very quickly, for example, for the CRM system,” says Isabelle Reick, Enterprise Architect at Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG.
The ODS central data platform consolidates all structured information related to the building society’s customers from various source systems and distributes it to various destination systems, including the CRM system and the data lake. ODS acts as a so-called decoupling layer, which relieves the core banking system of direct access requests from these systems. To this end, the data for the systems being phased out is prepared accordingly and made available centrally. By historicizing the data, the entire lifecycle of a data record is mapped out, allowing systems with different requirements to retrieve the data without any problems.
It was a challenge for the small, agile project team—composed of in-house members from Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG and specialists from CAS AG— was not only the multitude of requirements and constant changes related to system integration and data provision, but also the sudden shift to 100% remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a lack of immediate, direct communication, particularly when it came to developing shared ideas and concepts. By implementing technical solutions—such as ways to use flipcharts on screen even during online collaboration—and by taking a flexible approach to addressing the new circumstances when working on topics, the project team was able to successfully adapt to the changed situation. The group now meets regularly every few weeks in Schwäbisch Hall. Then, specific topics are tackled collaboratively, technical challenges are resolved, and the team itself is strengthened as a result.
The project team was also able to overcome the challenges posed by the still relatively new SAP HANA XSA (SAP HANA Extended Application Services Advanced Model) technology. “I’m pleased that, as a team, we’re solving problems with creative approaches to achieve our goals. The team isn’t afraid to dive right in, even when dealing with difficult issues,” says Isabelle Reick, who is responsible for the project at Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall AG. “Thanks to the data model we developed ourselves, we were able to very quickly make data available to the first systems with the initial release.”
The project was launched in late 2019 and has since integrated all customer and contract data from the new SAP S/4HANA core banking system in real time. Going forward, the focus will be on expanding data provision for existing and future systems.
