The Challenge
The client’s legacy system, which handled the ever-changing, complex requirements of serving over 8 million student loan borrowers annually, became more at-risk each year, reducing the client’s competitive edge.
Company leadership wanted to confirm the viability of an RFI-selected lead vendor to replace its mainframe-hosted legacy system and understand the technical, financial, timing, and resource implications of a modernization effort.
Project Description
We conducted an 11-week proof of concept assessment to confirm the viability of a commercial vendor including: program management; interviews; structured walk throughs (SWTs) of complex use cases; and deep-dive multi-disciplinary vendor-client discussions. We documented Proof of Concept (“POC”) test results and facilitated over 20 critical technology and business strategy decisions which informed the associated technical architecture, timeline, vendor cost estimates, client resource projections, risk assessment, and recommended approach.
Outcomes Delivered
- Target Architecture that portrayed level of required modification by client and vendor and management responsibilities for future state components
- Timeline that integrated vendor and client software development, data conversion, phased go lives for the client and its SaaS and BPO customers, and internal and external user training
- Cost Estimate broken out by licensing, infrastructure, and professional services for both implementation and ongoing costs.
- Resource Estimate of monthly PMO, technical, and business resource allocation over a 24-month period
- Risk Analysis and Mitigation for risks that could significantly increase the scope, cost, and duration of the modernization efforts
