The sound of summer…
Inspired by my colleague’s references to Le Tour (in which I also have a passing interest), I thought I’d take the chance to share some thoughts about one of my particular passions, and how it might relate to the type of technology I work with at Singularity.
What do you picture when I mention cricket? Probably big men in coloured clothes, crashing balls over the roof of the grandstand, music blasting with every big shot or wicket. Stop right there!
I’m talking about the purist form of the game, test cricket. Five days of titanic struggle, the combination of Herculean effort with Sartre-like intellect, brawn versus brain, the batsman’s dilemma of attacking the poor ball but ensuring he’s still out there at tea, the bowler’s challenge of mixing the unplayable ball with the stump-breaker and the tempting half-volley outside the off-stump. The umpires -the last bastions of respect and honour - with the important decisions in their hands alone (or maybe the third umpire if he’s not too sure). In the stands, glasses of Pimms and dainty sandwiches for the toffs, beer and pork pies for the regular folk, with the formality of MCC ties at one end of the ground mixed with the casual shorts at the other. There’s always the telly if you can’t be at the ground, with Hawkeye confirming or questioning the umpire’s view, and sweetest of all, cricket on the radio with the dulcet tones of Aggers and Blowers on Test Match Special. This is what summer is all about….
Anyway, earlier this month England was playing Australia in the Second Ashes Test at Lords, the home of cricket. Andrew Strauss, the England captain was placed in a bit of a predicament. England had batted first and amassed 425 runs, a mildly respectable score. They then bowled Australia out for just 215, a fantastic performance! So, now the predicament. Being more than 200 runs ahead after the first innings, England had the choice of whether to bat again (as would normally happen) or to make Australia ‘follow on’, i.e. make Australia bat again in the hope they would not even reach England’s total in their two innings combined, therefore bringing an early end to the game. Not an easy decision, and one where the pundits had many and varying opinions. The decision is largely based on assessing risks, most of which are unquantifiable. What if I make the Aussies bat again and they get a big score, taking them into the lead and forcing us to bat again? What if that happens and the pitch deteriorates making it easier for their bowlers and harder for us to get the runs we need? What if I decide that we’ll bat and they skittle us for a low score and they then become favourites? What’s the weather looking like? How tired are my bowlers? What’s my gut telling me? What’s Kevin Pietersen telling me?
You may be wondering what this has to do with technology. Well, how much easier would that decision have been for Andrew Strauss if he had a very clear set of assessment criteria which led to a well-structured and justifiable decision? In business, it seems to me that people often base their decisions on the assessment of unquantifiable risks using a combination of gut feel, experience and throwing darts at a board. The Singularity Client Risk Management solution addresses this particular problem within the financial services sector. It enables a structured risk assessment of every client, based on configurable criteria at the point of engagement with the client, and right through the client lifecycle. This ensures that even when circumstances change, the risk associated with that client is always accurately assessed, and decisions clearly justified. Of course, that doesn’t mean they will always be right, but at least they will be consistent.
Luckily for Andrew Strauss, on this occasion he made the right call, England batted again, scored another 300-odd, and bowled the Aussies out with 115 runs to spare. 1-0 and England went on to win. But wouldn’t life have been a little easier with some structure?
Author: Philip Mills, Singularity.
Tags: BPM, Client Risk Management, Customer-facing Risk, Document management, financial services