Andy asks an interesting question that helped me frame a different problem of customer centricity, discussed earlier.
… for systems and solutions design and the reason for my pondering on the issue, we are planning around using new technology abilities to do things ‘on demand’, or as an when needed, and in conjunction with the dynamic orchestration of other systems, processes and services. But how do we know that there will not be a restriction from synchronous issues?
Source: CTO Blog | Is Technology Asynchronous and Business Process Synchronous?
He uses asynchronous/ synchronous to explain the difficulty in applying real time tchnology to synchronous processes.
However I would note that we have the parallel problem of new processes that should be asynchronous, but have been built with technology synchronously. My comment on the CTO blog:
The business processes mentioned are all internal (accounting, clearing, reporting etc). What about customer processes?
Technology has been built for them synchronously, yet the real requirement is asynchronous.
Example: real time marketing. In this day of electronic channels, we need marketing capability driven by customer need, and contact, yet marketing technology has been built around campaigns, an internal driver.
I have tried to summarise this problem here:
| Internal Processes | Customer processes | |
| Synchronous | sweet spot |
Old marketing thinking drove us to apply business requirements based on old thinking. So now we have too many new technology systems built based on campaign driven marketing (synchronous) |
| Asynchronous |
Doesn’t work – these processes are driven by accounting, reporting, regulation. If you want to become asynchronous, then first re-engineer accounting (be my guest) |
sweet spot customers are asynchronous, so their events & needs should drive technology. |
Relevance to Bankwatch:
Andy’s use of the synchronous/asynchronous concepts provides a useful method to apply in developing technology business requirements. Do we need real time(expensive, data storage, fast reliable access etc) or batch (much lessened technolgy need, and cost)
Bankwatch 