John Coward
Financial Services POS advice tool - programme management of launch and evolutionary development for different sales channels
1987 - 1989
This company, ADVISA, was originally set up by the Moorgate Group in 1986 to develop and market a Financial Services point of sale advice PC product, which would enable independent financial advisers to comply with the Financial Services Act 1987, especially in the area of "best advice". The product, which was an early deployment of expert system technology, included an integrated fact find, needs analysis, and generic illustration knowledge base, remote product quotation viewdata service, and client administration database.
My role: I was headhunted to define the user requirements for the design and development of the new ADVISA product. I also had the responsibility for the ongoing support of the product, which was intended to be constructed by a software house. I had the role of Technical Director and reported to the Managing Director.
During the development, problems became apparent with the management of the project by the software house. I took overall control of development in mid 1987, initially to ensure that the product would be launched on time in the autumn at a planned series of road shows, and thereafter to manage the ongoing programme of ADVISA releases. The tasks I completed included:
- Specified the technical requirements of the ADVISA product
- Selected the third party development tools, including both the database (Dbase 3) and knowledge-based components (Crystal).
- Selected the third party application components to be integrated into ADVISA
- Designed the technical platform and software component integration.
- Recruited the permanent software product and customer support teams.
- Managed the development of the POS advice package, including the taxation rules and generic product illustrations implemented in Crystal knowledge bases.
- Managed the integration with third party Administration system, Product, Tax and Legal databases, and the regular updating and customer distribution of changes.
- Developed and integrated first version of ADVISA for launch in autumn 1987 (up to 20 staff controlled directly and indirectly).
- Negotiated with external suppliers of software components and data feeds.
- Demonstrated software both in sales support role and to attract potential investors.
- Post launch, expanded and developed basic IFA package for other sales channels:
- broker networks
- national brokers
- life company direct sales forces
The lessons learned from the ADVISA development programme were at several levels:
Technical: ADVISA was a very ambitious integration of many products on pre-Windows PC technology. At the launch on the original 286 PCs, it was too slow and complex for POS use, but subsequent evolutions streamlined the product.
Commercial: the justification for the product was too closely linked to the 1987 FSA. When, initially, the Act was not implemented rigorously, potential ADVISA customers had no pressing reason to implement a POS advice product. Many of these organisations were subsequently fined substantially for the mis-selling of personal pensions, which the ADVISA product would not have allowed. But, by this time (10 years later) the ADVISA product was almost defunct.
Managerial: The management of the initial product development and the subsequent programme was an early example of evolutionary product development. The design of the fact find in particular changed with customer feedback and increased sophistication of the unique financial needs analysis.
