Arvest Bank reskills IT to support its banking core refresh

“It
was
all
fear
factor,”
she
says.
“‘I’m
going
to
lose
my
job,’
or
‘I
don’t
know
this
technology
and
I’m
not
going
to
get
a
chance
to
learn
it.

[…]

Arvest Bank reskills IT to support its banking core refresh

“It
was
all
fear
factor,”
she
says.
“‘I’m
going
to
lose
my
job,’
or
‘I
don’t
know
this
technology
and
I’m
not
going
to
get
a
chance
to
learn
it.’”

Staff
comments
on
the
survey
showed
they
didn’t
feel
their
skills
were
valued,
or
even
known,
by
management.

That
prompted
Arvest
to
create
a
program
to
help
staff
upskill
or
reskill.
“We
actually
borrowed
it
from
one
of
our
partners,”
she
says.
“They
created
it
for
their
company
internally.”

The
upskilling
program,
called
me@arvest,
began
in
February
2022
with
training
for
the
IT
team
on
Google
Cloud
as
the
company
prepared
to
move
its
on-prem
workloads
there.
“We
needed
people
to
know
those
skills,”
says
Merling.
But
creating
the
next
wave
of
learning
journeys
took
longer
than
planned.
By
the
time
it
eventually
happened
in
July,
people
were
getting
nervous
they
weren’t
going
to
get
the
education,
she
adds.

The
turning
point
was
a
full
day
of
training
around
Google
Cloud
in
November,
with
500
people
in
the
room
and
another
500
online.
“We
had
our
executives
there,
the
bank
presidents,
the
whole
technology
team
plus,”
she
says.

Initially
offered
to
the
IT
team,
and
later
to
operations
staff,
me@arvest
will
soon
open
to
the
marketing
department.

Along
the
way,
Merling
decided
to
hire
someone
within
the
IT
organization
to
run
the
program,
which
previously
ran
through
HR.
This
plan
enables
her
to
meet
the
IT
team’s
skills
needs
up
to
ten
years
out.

A
new
purpose

One
part
of
the
original
strategy
Merling
kept
was
the
new
core
banking
software
from
Thought
Machine
that
Arvest
had
already
experimented
with

but
now
instead
of
redefining
retail
banking,
it’s
underpinning
the
modernization
of
the
bank’s
commercial
lending
processes.

“We’re
basically
rebuilding
the
entire
technology
stack
for
the
bank
by
assuming
a
banking-as-a-service
construct,
whether
we
choose
to
use
it
or
not,”
she
says.

By
that,
she
means
drawing
on
Thought
Machine’s
cloud-native,
microservices-based
approach,
building
new
products
and
services
that
can
be
accessed
through
its
APIs.

With
the
move
to
Thought
Machine
just
beginning,
the
old
core
banking
software
won’t
be
going
away
just
yet,
so
Arvest
is
using
Google
Cloud
to
deliver
a
single
view
of
its
customers.
“It’s
a
key
part
of
being
able
to
serve
customers
going
forward,”
she
says.

Merling
brought
in
external
help
to
stand
up
Google
Cloud,
training
her
own
staff
in
parallel
to
ensure
ongoing
maintenance.
“The
Thought
Machine
work
we
did
ourselves,”
she
says.

Under
her
transformation
and
operations
umbrella
are
the
CIO
responsible
for
the
existing
core
software,
and
the
CTO
building
the
new
software.
The
development
team
was
initially
small,
but
is
expanding
through
a
mix
of
new
hires
and,
as
people
learn
new
skills,
internal
transfers.

“My
commitment
to
them
was
to
make
sure
to
bring
everybody
along
for
the
ride,”
she
says.
“I
didn’t
want
to
create
an
‘us
versus
them’
situation.
That’s
super
important
to
be
able
to
grow
the
bank
for
the
long
term.”

Money
talks

It’s
a
truism,
but
“90%
of
change
management
is
communication,”
she
says.

To
that
end,
each
month
she
holds
skip-level
meetings
with
the
second-level
managers
in
her
team,
as
well
as
“transformation
talks”
where
the
changes
are
presented
to
staff.
Alongside
the
slow
burn
of
rebuilding
the
banking
core,
these
talks
are
also
a
chance
to
discuss
“quick
wins”:
smaller
technology
changes
that
make
a
difference,
such
as
the
recent
introduction
of
pre-authentication
for
customers
calling
the
contact
center.
“That
saved
a
minimum
of
200
to
300
hours
a
month
in
call
time,”
says
Merling.

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