Merger Implications on Systems Development

Since new products and services chance upon financial services, continuing systems development is inevitable. This is regardless of whether the function is outsourced, back-sourced, or sent offshore. Systems development tends to be chaotic even in less turbulent situations. Each project demands its own standards. Capable personnel are scarce, so management has to set down firm business goals at the outset (Keyes, 2000). Teams which work on systems development must never lose sight of the core purpose and priorities of the enterprise they serve.
Systems development should be integrated in to strategic leadership to cope with fundamental changes in the environment for business (Morrison and Taylor, 1999). Customer definition, location, and value deliveries should guide project resources, goals, and deadlines (Schniederjans & Schniederjans, 2007). All re-engineering must be evaluated against the yardstick of new customer values (Talwar, 1999). IT specialists should not determine priorities and structures. The latter should be determined by changes in customer demographics and needs.
High impact relationships with affluent clients are typical examples of the kind of projects which companies in financial services should address (Oberlin and Powers, 2004). Conclusions IT is not a stand-alone value generator in financial services-the tail cannot wag the dog! IT has to help a financial services business compete in an increasingly tough environment (Melnick, 1999). Outsourcing is inevitable because the specialized skill sets of financial services and IT are not in convergence. Financial services are not in evolution but in transformation (Morrison and Taylor, 1999).

IT should provide quality and assured support without occupying management resources. Immediate cost implications are not entirely relevant for outsourcing decisions-the Balanced Business Scorecard approach is better for assessing the preparedness of an enterprise to engage the future (Talwar, 1999). It is not possible to support back-sourcing of IT from IBM by JPM in this case.
References
A leader in global financial services, (2007), company web site, retrieved February 2007 from: http://www. jpmorganchase. com/cm/Satellite? c=Page&cid=8014123&pagename=jpmc/Page/New_JPMC_Homepage