Global Asset Management Firm

Sector

Skills / Platforms

C/C++ on Unix

Size

The team is currently 21 people, comprising 1 project manager, 8 developers, 11 testers/script-writers and 1 business analyst.

Background

Our client is one of the largest publicly traded global asset management firms in the world. In the interests of client confidentiality, the firm in this case study is referred to as ‘GAM’. Our relationship with GAM is long-term with the following service elements:

• QA Services – we have worked with the customer to build a full portfolio of test scripts for what was effectively an undocumented system. We did this by inspecting the code and constructing 150 test scripts which exercise the logical paths through the system. Some of these scripts take several hours to execute. We now execute the relevant test scripts for all new functional releases bringing in temporary test engineer resource as appropriate.
• Development Resources - we are engaged in a long term arrangement to help re-engineer the system. We have already been instrumental in language, hardware and operating system migrations. The regeneration programme has now moved onto re-architecting and library optimisation phases.

Requirement

GAM’s old Fund Management Application system was based on Pascal/Unix. They required a new system to be rewritten in C/C++ on Unix with Harvey Nash carrying out full development and Testing.

Solution

A core team of developers went on-site to work alongside GAM. During this time they received application business knowledge, architecture and frameworks, API and libraries used in the system, their UNIX environment etc. After a period of 6 months the team returned to Vietnam and continued working remotely.

From workstations in Vietnam, the team can develop and test GAM’s systems via a VPN network. The VPN was put in place after an extensive due diligence exercise by GAM network experts. Harvey Nash, through its BS7799 accreditation and extensive security processes, was able to successfully demonstrate to GAM that they could rely on us to securely access their business systems without putting their firm or their clients at risk.

GAM provide their own test manager and development manager for the project. These managers directly assign working tasks to developers and testers. Harvey Nash assigns a project manager responsible for recruiting, timesheet checking, resolving network issues and managing team performance.

GAM are now using Harvey Nash to further improve the system’s platform, database and technology, introducing web-based functionality in either Java or .Net. Harvey Nash is currently engaged in a business analysis activity to scope the business rules and requirements