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INDEX

Introduction: ........................................................................................................................................... 2

Company Profile: ..................................................................................................................................... 3

Reasons for BPR Initiative: ....................................................................................................................... 4

Scope and Time Frame: ........................................................................................................................... 5

Team Involved: ........................................................................................................................................ 7

Project Design: ........................................................................................................................................ 8

Supporting Tools and Techniques: ......................................................................................................... 13

Impact of the project “as is: and "to be": ............................................................................................... 14

Conclusion and Recommendations: ....................................................................................................... 15

Bibliography: ......................................................................................................................................... 16
Introduction:

BPR (Business Process Reengineering) is all about reinventing, rethinking, redesigning,


redirecting and rebuilding. It touches five segments strategy, processes, organization, technology
and culture. BPR is an ongoing process critical to a company's success. Faced with a constantly
changing business environment, companies are scurrying to grasp the potency of this trend -
propelled by competition, globalization and need for speed.

The most important reason for companies to launch BPR projects is to gain efficiency and
productivity. Once this is achieved, they can boost organizational efficiency and streamline
business and production processes. BPR helps companies optimize work flow and productivity.

A well- executed business process redesign equips an organization to meet inevitable market
challenges. Despite the fact that BPR is a business stream, IT can be a facilitating agent to it. As
IT gets more closely aligned with core business units, IT-enabled BPR initiatives is a sure-fire
way of achieving results. IT has the inherent capacity to innovate. If IT doesn't get involved in it,
the transition will be a mess because IT knows where the data is. It has the brain power. Once IT
realizes what's going wrong, it can find solutions and address the critical concerns. IT has to
become an integral part of BPR initiatives to ensure a high level of organizational commitment.
If IT does not get closely involved in BPR, business will remain oblivious of the challenges
heading its way. When IT takes charge of PR initiatives it enhances the department's value
within the organization and brings it closer to business.

BPR was implemented in ICICI Bank in year 2000 and later when anytime, anywhere banking
came to our country, ICICI Bank had to move away from the branch-centric model and make its
services available nationwide. The solution was to centralize its applications.

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Company Profile:

ICICI Bank (formerly Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India) is a major banking
and financial services organization in India. It is the 4th largest bank in India and the largest
private sector bank in India by market capitalization. The bank also has a network of 1,700+
branches (as on 31 March 2010) and about 4,721 ATMs in India and presence in 19 countries, as
well as some 24 million customers (at the end of July 2007). ICICI Bank offers a wide range of
banking products and financial services to corporate and retail customers through a variety of
delivery channels and specialization subsidiaries and affiliates in the areas of investment
banking, life and non-life insurance, venture capital and asset management. (These data are
dynamic.) ICICI Bank is also the largest issuer of credit cards in India. ICICI Bank's shares are
listed on the stock exchanges at Kolkata and Vadodara, Mumbai and the National Stock
Exchange of India Limited; its ADRs trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The Bank is expanding in overseas markets and has the largest international balance sheet among
Indian banks. ICICI Bank now has wholly-owned subsidiaries, branches and representatives
offices in 19 countries, including an offshore unit in Mumbai. This includes wholly owned
subsidiaries in Canada, Russia and the UK (the subsidiary through which the HiSAVE savings
brand is operated), offshore banking units in Bahrain and Singapore, an advisory branch in
Dubai, branches in Belgium, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka, and representative offices in
Bangladesh, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Africa, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and
USA. Overseas, the Bank is targeting the NRI (Non-Resident Indian) population in particular.

ICICI reported a 1.15% rise in net profit to Rs. 1,014.21 crore on a 1.29% increase in total
income to Rs. 9,712.31 crore in Q2 September 2008 over Q2 September 2007. The bank's CASA
ratio increased to 30% in 2008 from 25% in 2007.

ICICI Bank is one of the Big Four Banks of India, along with State Bank of India, Axis Bank
and HDFC Bank — its main competitors.

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Reasons for BPR Initiative:

 In year 2000 and later when anytime, anywhere banking came to our country, ICICI Bank
had to move away from the branch-centric model and make its services available
nationwide. The solution was to centralize its applications.
 Legacy systems: The traditional systems at ICICI Bank were very centric to the branch.
For example a server at New Delhi was specific to the branch in that city; the ATMs were
standalone catering only to the city branch. The banking transactions were thus limited to
the respective branch offices as customer data was not available in other branches. This
made banking a limited service and very branch specific. ICICI realized the importance
of offering nationwide banking but this would be possible only by having a centralized
data repository.

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Scope and Time Frame:

In 1955, The Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India Limited (ICICI) was
incorporated at the initiative of World Bank, the Government of India and representatives of
Indian industry, with the objective of creating a development financial institution for providing
medium-term and long-term project financing to Indian businesses. In 1994, ICICI established
Banking Corporation as a banking subsidiary. Formerly known as Industrial Credit and
Investment Corporation of India, ICICI Banking Corporation was later renamed as 'ICICI Bank
Limited'. ICICI founded a separate legal entity, ICICI Bank, to undertake normal banking
operations - taking deposits, credit cards, car loans etc. In 2001, ICICI acquired Bank of Madura
(est. 1943). Bank of Madura was a Chettiar bank, and had acquired Chettinad Mercantile Bank
(est. 1933) and Illanji Bank (established 1904) in the 1960s. In 2002, The Boards of Directors of
ICICI and ICICI Bank approved the reverse merger of ICICI, ICICI Personal Financial Services
Limited and ICICI Capital Services Limited, into ICICI Bank. After receiving all necessary
regulatory approvals, ICICI integrated the group's financing and banking operations, both
wholesale and retail, into a single entity. At the same time, ICICI started its international
expansion by opening representative offices in New York and London. In India, ICICI Bank
bought the Shimla and Darjeeling branches that Standard Chartered Bank had inherited when it
acquired Grindlays Bank.

In 2003, ICICI opened subsidiaries in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK), and in the UK it
established an alliance with Lloyds TSB. It also opened an Offshore Banking Unit (OBU) in
Singapore and representative offices in Dubai and Shanghai. In 2004, ICICI opened a
representative office in Bangladesh to tap the extensive trade between that country, India and
South Africa. In 2005, ICICI acquired Investitsionno-Kreditny Bank (IKB), a Russia bank with
about US$4mn in assets, head office in Balabanovo in the Kaluga region, and with a branch in
Moscow. ICICI renamed the bank ICICI Bank Eurasia. Also, ICICI established a branch in
Dubai International Financial Centre and in Hong Kong. In 2006, ICICI Bank UK opened a
branch in Antwerp, in Belgium. ICICI opened representative offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, and
Kuala Lumpur. In 2007, ICICI amalgamated Sangli Bank, which was headquartered in Sangli, in
Maharashtra State, and which had 158 branches in Maharashtra and another 31 in Karnataka
State. Sangli Bank had been founded in 1916 and was particularly strong in rural areas. With
respect to the international sphere, ICICI also received permission from the government of Qatar
to open a branch in Doha. Also, ICICI Bank Eurasia opened a second branch, this time in St.
Petersburg. In 2008, The US Federal Reserve permitted ICICI to convert its representative office
in New York into a branch. ICICI also established a branch in Frankfurt. In 2009, ICICI made
huge changes in its organisation like elimination of loss making department and restreching
outsourced staff or renegotiate their charges in consequent to the recession. In addition to this,

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ICICI adopted a massive approach aims for cost control and cost cutting. In consequent of it,
compesation to staff was not increased and no bonus declared for 2008-09.

Acquisition of Bank of Rajashthan

On 23 May, 2010 ICICI Bank announced merger with Bank of Rajasthan with it through share-
swap in a non-cash deal that values the Bank of Rajasthan at about Rs 3,000 crore. Each 118
shares of Bank of Rajasthan will be converted into 25 shares of ICICI. It is said that this merger
will also expand ICICI Bank's branch network by 25%.

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Team Involved:

 Infosys is one of technology partner for ICICI Bank which game the assistance to
implement Finacle for handling all the banking activities
 Bill Desk for online payments
 SYBASE
 SAS

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Project Design:

The shift

The basic network was set up for providing the e-mail facility, but none of the applications were
linked to the network. The network comprised of a mix of servers running different applications
at various branches of the bank. With growing business and rapidly increasing accounts, the
company found it extremely difficult to administer and manage the system.

This also resulted in duplication of backend services and procedures, as the systems were not
centralized for the core banking applications.

There was a lot of additional cost being incurred due to the duplication of the backend
procedures at the branch offices.

The centralization procedure started around late 1999. ICICI Infotech (a company promoted by
ICICI) made the first network design for the group in 1999—it was a hub and spoke architecture.

Utmost care was taken to design a network with a strong backbone. According to Manoj, the key
strength of a network is its back-bone. The group's various centers are connected by 2 Mbps or 4
Mbps leased lines.

Manoj said the design considerations not only included high bandwidth availability but also the
fact that a single point of failure should not result in lines going down.

The group realized that it had to enter into the retail space, have local regional presence, and
provide alternate channels to the customer. They needed a solution whereby they could offer
services across the country.

Centralizing the operations was not the solution, but centralization of data was. ICICI Bank had
already centralized some of the operations but still had some branch applications running
independently which were not centralized and had ATMs which were stand-alones. Two major
criteria considered before designing were not only the network, but also the infrastructure
available in our country

In the past, the infrastructure here was such that a company could not rely on leased lines
completely. So ICICI needed backups on ISDN and VSATs, along with the 64 Kbps leased lines.
The leased lines were too expensive then, now the lines are better, more stable and offer good
connectivity. The cost has also come down by around 15 percent.

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It was really important was to have a world class data center and centralize everything in one
place, as that's where the network can be used at the maximum. To ensure 24x7 service access
and connectivity to customers one needs to have reliable backups and a robust network in place.
From a business perspective, the main reason to go in for a network was centralization of data,
provide all channels of communication and at the same time provide anytime, anywhere banking.
The problem ICICI Bank faced with our legacy systems was that they were stand-alone systems
and the data from one branch was not available with another branch.

These problems led us to the new design of the hub and spoke architecture.

The big solution

What ICICI was looking for was a robust network, which would enable it to offer services at the
retail level throughout the country. The in-house ICICI Infotech was the obvious choice for
consultation. The ICICI Infotech team designed the initial network topology in 1999. The team
had put forward a series of designs, not radically different from each other.

Eventually, a design with a mix of VSATs, leased-lines, radio-links and ISDN was selected. A
mixed design was selected because of the disparate locations of the group across the country.
There were different technical problems in different locations and the next best available solution
had to be included.

The advantage in a hub and spoke architecture is that multiple nodes (spokes) are connected with
a hub location through a ring of single-mode fiber. Each hub-node connection can consist of
single or multiple wavelengths (lambdas), each carrying a full Gigabit Ethernet channel.
Protection from fiber cuts in the ring is achieved by connecting the hub and nodes through both
directions of the optical ring. Service provider Gigabit Ethernet metro access rings are the main
applications for this architecture. And another advantage is that nodes can be added to the
network more easily.

Methodology

The most important aspect to setting up a network is to have a good relation between the
technology consultant (network integrator), the vendor and the client.

The vendors in the market are more or less capable of giving the same results, like the same
amount of redundancy or strength of the network. What really matters is the relation between the
three. If there is harmony amongst the three, then better results will be achieved.

The client plays the most important role as he has very low time to market, and delivery is
required at the earliest.

A series of products are available in the market. As the time to market is so short, ICICI Infotech
selects the products available in the market and integrates them. This takes care of 98 percent of

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the solution requirement and then ICICI Infotech build the other two to three percent around it nd
deliver the perfect solution to the client.

The Network

The network follows a hub and spoke architecture—a mix of VSATs, leased lines, ISDN and
radio links. It has around 800 leased lines, about 600 VSATs, approximately 800 ISDN lines and
multiple 34 Mbps lines.

The network supports the ICICI group offices, banks, branches, and over 1000 ATMs. There is a
primary site from where spokes go out to the regional branches and the other offices. The
secondary site has the disaster recovery system.

There are around eight hub locations, which have 3, 4 or 8 Mbps lines as per the requirements for
connecting to the branch and regional offices.

High-end Cisco routers and switches have been deployed for connectivity. The network is
monitored using HP OpenView and CiscoWorks. Over 30 portals are operating using a highly
secure state-of-the-art security architecture, which consist of firewalls, intrusion detection
systems, virus protection and various other tools.

The main production site is at Mahalaxmi, Mumbai (the primary site), and has been built to
international standards.

The disaster recovery site (the secondary site) is located at ICICI towers in Bandra-Kurla
complex, Mumbai and is used for replication of data. A distance of 25-30 kms separates the two
centers and they are linked with two 34 Mbps leased lines. To ensure reliability and 24x7
availability, the leased lines pass through separate exchanges.

Before the data moves on to the leased lines, it passes through two CNT storage directors that
convert this data into WAN-related traffic before it is sent on the leased line to the other data
center. The high-speed leased lines make it possible to synchronize data in real-time between the
two centers.

Hardware at both these sites varies from low-end NT servers to the high-end SUN E 10K along
with 12 terabytes of data storage at each end connected through a SAN. The group's facilities
management team manages over 9,500 desktops, 500 servers and works around the clock. CA
Unicenter is used for managing the helpdesk, desktops and servers, asset management, software
delivery and remote control.

Unix is the preferred OS for most of the hardware while most of the databases use Oracle with a
few on Sybase and MS SQL. Over 200 databases are supported with 24x7 processing. The state-
of-the-art technology architecture adopted by ICICI Bank needed robust security, and this was
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designed by qualified experts from its Systems Security Cell. This security design includes
preparation, implementation and maintenance of the Systems Security policies and procedures
across all systems, ensuring general user awareness about these policies and enforcing the
policies through systems audits. The security cell has developed several tools, which are the first
of its kind to address several vulnerabilities on Unix, NT and MS-Exchange. The system security
is audited by KPMG.

Solution by Infosys

One of the biggest challenges for Finacle was ensuring straight through processing (STP) of most
of the financial transactions. With the ICICI group having several companies under its umbrella,
Finacle needed to seamlessly integrate with multiple applications such as credit cards, mutual
funds, brokerage, call center and data warehousing systems. Another key challenge was
managing transaction volumes. ICICI Bank underwent a phase of organic and inorganic growth,
first by acquiring Bank of Madura followed by a reverse merger of the bank with its parent
organization, ICICI Limited. The scalable and open systems based architecture, enabled Finacle
to successfully manage the resultant increase in transaction levels from 400,000 transactions a
day in 2000 to nearly 2.1 million by 2005 with an associated growth in peak volumes by 5.5
times. With Finacle, the bank currently has the ability to process 0.27 million cheques per day
and manage 7000 concurrent users.

Over the years, the strategic partnership between ICICI Bank and Infosys that started in 1994 has
grown stronger and the close collaboration has resulted in many innovations. For instance, in
1997, it was the first bank in India to offer Internet banking with Finacle’s e-banking solution

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and established itself as a leader in the Internet and eCommerce space. The bank followed it up
with offering several e-Commerce services like Bill Payments, Funds Transfers and Corporate
Banking over the net. The internet is a critical element of ICICI Bank’s award winning multi-
channel strategy that is one of the main engines of growth for the bank. Between 2000 and 2004,
the bank has been able to successfully move over 70 percent of routine banking transactions
from the branch to the other delivery channels, thus increasing overall efficiency. Currently, only
25 percent of all transactions take place through branches and 75 percent through other delivery
channels. This reduction in routine transactions through the branch has enabled ICICI Bank to
aggressively use its branch network as customer acquisition units. On an average, ICICI Bank
adds 300,000 customers a month, which is among the highest in the world.

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Supporting Tools and Techniques:

 Finacle – a core banking and universal banking solution from Infosys


 The network follows a hub and spoke architecture—a mix of VSATs (Very small
aperture terminal) , leased lines, ISDN and radio links. It has around 800 leased lines,
about 600 VSATs, approximately 800 ISDN lines and multiple 34 Mbps lines.
 UNIX is the preferred OS for most of the hardware while most of the databases use
Oracle with a few on Sybase and MS SQL.

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Impact of the project “as is: and "to be":

Earlier, the traditional systems at ICICI Bank were very centric to the branch. For example a
server at New Delhi was specific to the branch in that city; the ATMs were standalone catering
only to the city branch. The banking transactions were thus limited to the respective branch
offices as customer data was not available in other branches. This made banking a limited service
and very branch specific. ICICI realized the importance of offering nationwide banking but this
would be possible only by having a centralized data repository.

But, later using the support of companies like Infosys, Oracle, SYBASE, SAS it implemented
such a system which centralized applications for 'anywhere' banking

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Conclusion and Recommendations:

ICICI Bank has grown immensely over a period of time. First time in history a private bank has
merged a public sector bank i.e. ICICI Bank announced merger with Bank of Rajasthan. On 23
May ICICI Bank announced merger with Bank of Rajasthan with it through share-swap in a non-
cash deal that values the Bank of Rajasthan at about Rs 3,000 crore. Each 118 shares of Bank of
Rajasthan will be converted into 25 shares of ICICI. It is said that this merger will also expand
ICICI Bank's branch network by 25%. ICICI Bank is also carrying out its activities in Rural
Areas by helping SHGs (Self Help Groups) and in other microfinance acitivities.

Certain recommendations are as follows:

 The ICICI VSAT network is large, with almost a thousand nodes. Keeping it going
turned out to be an even bigger challenge for the group. The entire network is monitored
from one center. Any error in the network at any point is rectified in a short span of time
and the system is up and running with minimum downtime. ICICI must have a proper
control and look over this issue
 ICICI Bank’s name comes in various controversies than any other bank mainly the
method of recovery. This may hinder the BPR process further in future if the bank gets
into any type of legal case. To avoid this ICICI Bank must follow the rules and
regulations.

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Bibliography:

 Business Process Reengineering: Text And Cases By Radhakrishnan,


Radhakrishnan/balasubramanian
 Business Process Reengineering By Markus Slamanig
 http://www.icicibank.com/
 http://www.infosys.com
 http://www.google.co.in/

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