Albany Beck launches its solution to Change Management in Ireland’s financial services

Over the last five years, the London-based financial services consultancy company, Albany Beck, has established itself firmly within the Irish financial services market. In choosing Dublin as its European hub in 2018, it has guaranteed the successful expansion of the company and spearheaded transformations for their clients.

In this article, Dublin-born Adam Kelly, Managing Partner for Albany Beck, and Ian Thomas, the Practice Head for the company’s Change Management & Data Migration programmes, announce Albany Beck’s imminent launch of Change Management Solutions in Ireland. They outline the fundamental factors that ensure their unlimited capacity to manage change effectively for their clients.

Ian Thomas - Practice Head for Change Management Solutions

Adam Kelly - Managing Partner

Kelly recognises that providing effective Change Management Solutions within financial services is a vital part of ensuring the successful growth of a company, and that it involves complex and comprehensive migration and transformation programmes.

With many years of specialist experience in directing the implementation of complex and strategic business and technology transformations and migrations across Europe and Asia, Thomas said: “It’s our tried and tested execution and delivery of change management on a global scale, with such good rigour and control, that’s Albany Beck’s unique selling point.”

One example of this was the multi-year $145m programme to merge two large financial firms from a technology and process perspective. “This involved complex integrations of the chief operating officer functions and all IT aspects of the combined organisations.”  Thomas adds that developing a comprehensive and thorough common governance framework to manage the day-to-day delivery of the programme has achieved £10m of benefits to date. This governance framework has been adopted across further projects as ‘best practice’.

Unique Consultant Structure

Albany Beck offers two levels of handpicked consultants for a change management project. Their Practitioners have 5+ years’ experience and are specialists with industry-specific, and technical expertise. They have the knowledge that is needed for an immediate impact on migration and transformation programmes.

In addition, their Pioneers have 1-5 years’ experience and benefit from a world-class, robust 12-month tailored training programme, and the on-going support of Engagement Managers. Kelly added: “Both levels of consultants are rigorously screened and expertly interviewed by our resource managers. They then benefit from exceptional continuous training, development, and upskilling, so we can offer the full spectrum of expertise for managing change.”

However, it is Albany Beck’s ability to provide the perfect blend of expert talent within critical areas on migration and transformation projects, that has enabled a broad and diverse range of global financial institutions to deliver impactful change. Kelly affirms that this has been achieved because their experts complement a business in five vital areas: technical development, testing teams, migration execution, middle office operations, and client relationships. He clarified: “In all five areas, we place experts to ensure the smooth execution of change for our clients.”

In addition, clients utilise Albany Beck’s lead specialists who are responsible for delivering the day-to-day change management in five specific areas. These include a technical lead who drives the development of the client’s platforms, systems, application, tools, and APIs, and shapes them to the client’s objectives. Another specialist is the operations lead who makes sure the operations and products are aligned with the client’s new technological capabilities. “On one project, we created more than 30 new or revised operational models that brought together a multitude of existing bespoke models. It was streamlined and had follow-the-sun capacity,” Thomas explained.

Scalable Solutions

Furthermore, Kelly adds that they have the ability to offer scalable, stress-free solutions: teams can be effectively spun up or reduced based upon the on-going analysis of the migration and transformation process. “Each change project has its own challenges, and it’s only when we’re in the intricacies of the programme, and unpicking elements, that the full complexities reveal themselves. Our consultants thrive on complexities and finding effective solutions to complicated problems for our clients.”

Albany Beck has provided global, large-scale Change Management Solutions when implementing data, client, and cloud migrations. In executing data migrations, Kelly explains that they identify which data needs to move, develop the processes to move it securely between platforms and carry out the migration without impacting their client’s daily business performance. He added: “In the past, our cloud migrations have involved us moving our client’s operations safely and smoothly to the cloud, using our expertise in Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud.”

Thomas explains that in one specific programme the client migration involved 300 external clients and 9000 accounts with significant global market positions to new systems, “Effectively delivering a seamless customer experience is crucial for our clients.”

Long Term Benefits For Clients

With the imminent launch of Albany Beck’s Change Management Solutions in the Irish financial market, Kelly said: “We don’t just work closely with our client’s teams and then disappear at the end of the change project. Albany Beck goes beyond this one-off solution to change management.” He adds that the company is passionate about building strong, confident relationships that create productive and sustainable teams. Embedding their consultants within the teams, ensures they quickly respond to on-going needs. He added: “Developing the team’s skills and knowledge throughout the project, means that when the initial migration or transformation programme is finished, they have the necessary skills to maximise the capabilities on a long-term basis.”

An important long-term benefit for their clients is that Albany Beck offers their client the opportunity to retain individual consultants after an agreed period. The director of a top-tier investment bank said: “The niche value proposition to us was the ability to retain high-performing individuals, at various levels, after an agreed period – therefore preventing the loss of IP and investment.” 

Most importantly, it empowers Irish-based businesses to build workforce strength and resilience for the future.

The future for Albany Beck’s expansion plans in the Irish market

In Ireland, Albany Beck has developed inspiring, talented consultants across a multiplicity of high-demand skill areas. By accelerating their expertise and experiences, and structuring their support in bespoke solutions, Albany Beck will continue to provide their clients with exceptional standards as they launch their highly effective Change Management Solutions.

Kelly concludes: “We’re an ambitious company so you can expect to see further developments in the near future playing our part in cementing Ireland’s position at the forefront of innovation, sustainability and change in global financial markets.”

We are already mandated by Irish clients to assist them in their immediate needs while addressing the talent shortage in the ever-evolving change and transformation space. Get in touch with Adam Kelly to learn how we can support you and your business.