“A System Is Not a Deliverable” — What I Learned in London About Building Systems That Grow and Sell Globally
I Used to Think “Completion” Was the Goal Whoa! The financial system was evolving like a living organism. For nearly eight years, I had been involved in system development. Designing, developing, testing, and delivering systems. That was the world I worked in. Of course, I also proposed improvements along the way. But deep down, I still had the mindset that “a system is complete once it’s delivered.” Then one day, I joined a project that changed my perspective entirely. It was a project where a customer was bringing a financial system from London to Japan. The “Unusual Scene” I Witnessed in London I joined a two-week training program in London as the person responsible for understanding the system from the application perspective. What I saw there shocked me. The system was not owned by a software vendor. It was owned by a financial institution in London. In other words, the financial company itself had built a core banking system and was selling it overseas as its own bu...