Wes Corp Work Values

Daily Duties at Wes Corp:

Major Tasks with a $11mm annual budget and about 90 IT Staff IT Project Prioritization identified was the lack of senior management within the Business Unit involvement in project prioritization. It was and is my belief that the introduction and priority of these projects should be set by the organization.With the backing of my boss I set out to set up a Project Prioritization Committee. The list has successfully been prioritized and we continue to improve the process with subjections from the committee members. Business Relationship Management instituted the IT Business Relationship Management (BRM) Program.The BRM model for the Technology Sector is a technique, which allows IT to gain a better understanding of the business units needs. ITSR Re-Design • The format is intended to be a more customer or client friendly form for requesting services from the IT Division • The format will tie into the key approval components for strategic or enhancement project activities as approved by the Technology Business Steering Council • It has a provision for mapping a service request to one of the company's five strategic initiatives, which can be used to help measure the relationship of work being requested as it relates to our 5 initiatives. For example if the goal of the company is to become more client centric but during a given reporting month only 5% of all work being requested addresses this initiative then one could contend that more work is required to sell or push this behavior within the company. IT Communication Focus Group Based on the results of last years employee survey the employees felt that the company was lacking in certain areas. The three major issues that became apparent to the IT leadership were Employee Recognition, Communications and Trust. Using those results we decided to assemble a diverse group of IT staff to form a Focus Group that would help resolve some of these issues within the IT division. The group consisted of a cross section of the entire IT division and was facilitated by La Verne Williams. The creation of a cross-functional team report that celebrates the completion of a project, but also identifies the values and benefits of the project. With the increase in remote employees, businesses must effectively and consistently communicate with employees across different geographies and time zones, keeping them informed about the company and focused on key objectives. At the same time, companies need to encourage synergy in project work and creative collaboration. This represents a major management communication challenge and creates technology and cost issues when weighed with productivity considerations. IT Issues A corporate portal gives IT a strategic, Web-based platform for delivering and maintaining these services and provides employees with a single destination for accessing them and selecting only those services that help them do their job. BU involvement:We have re-met with HR, documented our second meeting and provided the department with a listing of the Portlets the department would like to see in Phase I. Monthly “All Hands” IT Meetings One of the biggest complaints from the IT survey was the lack of communication with the IT staff. In response to this issue we have instituted a monthly “All Hands” meeting for all IT staff. This meeting is intended to facilitate communication not only on IT initiatives but also as an update on organizational activities. It also serves as a venue for staff to voice concerns or simply pose questions to the IT leadership team. In the last few months working with Chris Hoff and Tim Sidley, we have organized an Operational Risk Assessment committee. We are in the early stages of the Risk Assessment Process but are moving forward and learning as we go. We plan on doing a pilot assessment with the IT Department being the guinea pig.Specifically, the Information Technology and Enterprise Security Services teams are moving forward with an alignment towards utilizing SEI/Carnegie-Mellon's OCTAVE (Operationally Critical Threat, Asset, and Vulnerability Evaluation) which is a risk-based strategic assessment and planning technique for information technology and information security. OCTAVE is a technique or methodology that contributes and aligns to an over-arching Operational Risk Management framework. Our goal is to align the inputs and outputs of the various stakeholders and audit/governance entities involved in the process (including the business units and BCP drivers) such that we can efficiently gain clarity as it relates to our overall Operational Risk posture. EPS Wire Verification This enhancement will reduce the number of outgoing calls EPS makes to verbally confirm wires initiated electronically (An average of five minutes per wire on 40 plus wires per day). This project, started over a year ago, required extensive collaboration in the form of weekly meetings between the IT Systems Integration and EPS in terms of specification, design, functionality, testing, and implementation. Development included many new and modified modules on the WAVE front-end and the AS/400 back-end. The test matrix was enormously complicated and required weeks to complete. Hyperian Business Model Automation Working with Accounting, we have, and will continue to automate the extraction of data needed by the Hyperian system. BCP Test Successful testing of WesCorp’s Temecula Business Contingency site occurred on March 19th with minimal or no impact to members. Secure FTP Service Implementation (SFTP) We completed the implementation of this capability in May of 2004. By June 2004 the IPS organization began to implement processes between remote sites and CU members to take full advantage of the SFTP service. At this juncture, Kerns Schools, AFFCU, PPP CUSO and HIUSA and the Spokane facility currently deploy this service on an ongoing basis. Hawaii CUSO IPS, IT Security, and the IT Network group successfully installed and configured the AFS Image Vision network for the PPP Hawaii CUSO providing them full LAN/WAN connectivity in a secured environment. With HIUSA technical staff providing the base network components and TUI installing the NCR sorter and encoders, the target date of June 23rd was met and provided the successful completion of Phase I. Salt Lake City Check Collection Site In July, IT successfully completed managing the design, installation, configuration, and deployment of a completely new LAN and WAN for the latest IPS processing site in Salt Lake City. This accomplishment was a first of its kind for IT and IPS, in that AFS was not called upon for service or involved with any part of the install or configurations of systems or applications. AFFCU Image Transfer The IPS operation supporting AFFCU, both in Seattle and Salt Lake City, has been described by IPS as functional and effective. All planned components of file movements between processing sites, Seattle, Salt Lake City, San Dimas and the use of the new Secured FTP Service and data line to AFFCU were determined to be both sound and operationally functional Data Integration Phase 1 The primary objective of this activity for 2004 was to capture business requirements, identify data opportunities, implement an inexpensive pilot hub, and complete a vendor selection and proof of concept process for phase II, which is to take place in 2005. Results from these objectives were as follows • We completed the requirements phase of this activity and have identified a number of opportunities. In the short term we implemented an inexpensive version of a data integration hub capability, which currently supports a Member Product Revenue Datamart, which was implemented in July, a Certificates datamart which was implemented in September and it is currently under review by Investments and MRM. We completed the Market Daily datamart in October. We plan to implement datamarts for other product lines including: SimpliCD, MCA, PIC, Investment Advisory, Broker Dealer, Loans, LPO and Derivatives throughout the remainder of the year and into 2005. • We have completed our vendor selection process and proof of concept and selected Informatica as our data integration engine. We’ve completed two rounds of negotiations with Informatica and are in the process of reviewing their master agreement and license addendum. • We have facilitated the formation of Wescorp Data Integration Council as part of our approach in support of the business re-engineering process to help us migrate to the concept of deploying a business intelligence data warehouse capability to the company. Our initial meeting with the Council produced positive results and subsequently we have begun meeting with each business unit to start the process of identifying any potential datamart/business intelligence requirements. We will be meeting with Credit/Risk, Investments, the I/A Users Group, and Accounting. The task of presenting the organization with these capabilities will be a deliberate but steady process into 2005. Lockbox System Replacement In support of the Lockbox project, Information Technology has replaced 10 workstations within the Lockbox area with newer enhanced systems. These systems now surpass the minimum requirements for the new Lock Box client application, and Accuracy installed on each. Extended IT Leadership Training Program Internal Network Security Enhancement Qualys Guard Service In response to our last penetration activity, which indicated weaknesses in our internal network security posture, we successfully deployed QualysGuard’s Intranet Scanner Services to provide on-demand vulnerability management capabilities for internal network security.

What they like about Wes Corp:

A hiring company that offers alternative approaches to pay, performance bonuses, and/or equity in the firm is very attractive to you. You're generally less interested in working for an organization offering only traditional, salary-based compensation, one with limited opportunity to acquire equity in the firm, or one that does not actively promote skill development. In addition, you are more likely to choose a company that offers a variety of internal career options, with defined career paths. You view the learning of new skills and development of your expertise as key to your career advancement. These aspects of an organization may become even more important to you as you progress in your field, and are especially critical if you change career or occupation.

Tags

CIO, CTO

Skills

Software Development, Leadership, Innovation, Enterprise Strategies

These are some of the questions we asked our climbers about their experiences with Wes Corp: