To be more agile in new applications and customer services deployment, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank sought to automate previously manual processes and transform application delivery in the cloud.

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank applied IBM UrbanCode software and the IBM Cloud platform to automate development processes and bring new applications and services online more quickly.

“We like to disrupt a bit,” says Daniel Corboy, developer and DevOps engineer at Bendigo Adelaide Bank, as he explains how his company takes a different approach to banking than its larger competitors. “We operate with a strong regional and community focus and we’ve set ourselves up to be agile, delivering code and services quickly, but just as importantly, establishing a reliable and easy-to-manage development cycle.”

The bank needed new applications deployed in minutes and new environments delivered much more quickly than the five weeks it typically took. “Our bank’s customers want their services now and they typically want access from their smartphone or device. We had significant issues with delivering in a timely manner and keeping pace with our competition,” says Corboy. “We ended up with process bloat and were looking for ways to operate differently and respond to our customers – both internal and external - more quickly. I think any IT group operating in a company the size of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank experiences pain associated with delivery times and the management of environments. I’m sure we’re not the only organization with thousands of spreadsheets managing enumerable processes throughout the organization.”

In order to ease and streamline the governance of, and increase visibility into, its development environment, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank implemented IBM UrbanCode Deploy software on the IBM Cloud platform.

On the DevOps side, Corboy’s team piggybacked on an UrbanCode Deploy software implementation already underway with the bank’s IT service management group, which was seeking to automate infrastructure builds. “We took one look at UrbanCode Deploy and saw that it suited our needs perfectly. It paired really well with our existing tool chain and made the decision easy,” he says. The UrbanCode software facilitates the governance and traceability of development processes, and provides critical automation. “We’ve removed a lot of the manual intervention from our process,” says Corboy. “UrbanCode automates so much of the step-by-step processes that we previously managed with spreadsheets and paper.”

The bank also tapped the IBM Cloud platform to support a fundamental change in the way its development teams approached their work. “We challenged every rule we had internally to see which ones actually made sense. The IBM Cloud platform fit hand-in-hand with that approach, because we could deliver quickly, test things and know very quickly if we had something good on our hands,” says Corboy. “We didn’t have to wait months for infrastructure to be spun up. We got the solutions in the hands of our users, got their feedback, iterated and made the necessary adjustments.”

Corboy’s team worked with the IBM Garage, an IBM consultancy group that partners with companies to accelerate the design of custom solutions. “This was our first implementation on the IBM Cloud platform, and we were able to bring it to production within three months, with new security patterns built in.”
 

With the newfound ability to deploy applications in minutes and reduce full environment deployment times from five weeks to a half-day, Corboy sees a marked improvement in the relationship between his department and its internal customers—the bank’s business units. “The business is coming to us and we’re not asking them for a significant amount of money and time to deliver a full-blown new service. We’re delivering fully tested services incrementally, and they realize the benefits quickly.”

Additionally, Corboy’s team is servicing more internal departments than it was able to previously. “Some areas of the business that would have been neglected by IT—not deliberately, but because we didn’t have the capacity—are now seeing benefits flow to their particular customers.” According to Corboy, the IBM Cloud platform is ideal for supporting such agility and streamlined delivery. “Margins are smaller everywhere and the ability to deliver critical services quickly and incrementally without a massive capital outlay is a benefit to everyone.”

“UrbanCode Deploy and cloud technologies, like IBM Cloud platform, allow us to disrupt, mainly due to the agility we’re able to deliver and pivot on,” says Corboy. “We can deliver solutions quickly, and if that solution isn’t right, we’re able to adapt quickly and change to something which better meets the business requirements.”
 

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is Australia’s fifth largest retail bank, with more than 7,200 staff and 1.6 million customers. The company was formed by the merger of Bendigo Bank and Adelaide Bank in November 2007. With its national headquarters in the city of Bendigo the bank has assets under management of more than $65.7 billion and market capitalization of around $4.6 billion.