High quality Trader Floor Deskside Infrastructure and Application Support

• This will include a hot-swap service to rectify hardware faults with minimum downtime. The equipment included to be supported is:

- Thin clients/Desktop PCs/Monitors/Keyboards (Inc. Bloomberg keyboards)/Mice
- Desk phones
- IPC Dealer boards

Most recently, Agenor’s Trader Support Team in the Netherlands have had to redesign the shape of their operations as a result of constraints imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

We have responded quickly to the client demand for remote working and they have provided rapid support for deployment and configuration of all aspects of client home working.

This has been a huge success with minimal service disruption for the client business at both the Trader Floor and in the client back-office support function.

In order to showcase the high-quality service that the Agenor Team deliver on this engagement, I compiled a number of questions and asked the Infrastructure Support Engineers to collaborate together and provide some insights into how they sustain the outstanding levels of service and support our client continues to enjoy:

As a group of individual engineers, we bring a variety of technical skills to the team and strong communication skills are a key component in providing effective support in our fast-paced time sensitive trading environment. But what stands out in abundance is the ability get the job done, and our overarching ability to provide great service. A non-exhaustive list of technical skills is required that includes Active Directory, VMWare/ virtualization technologies, Networking, SAN/NAS and of course people skills! As seasoned engineers whose careers have spanned working across a variety of financial service organisations, expectation management is a well understood key skill to possess.

As every day is different, it is difficult to provide a one paragraph synopsis of our responsibilities, but the daily role involves a start of day system ‘checkout’, rapid diagnosis of production problems, and escalation of issues where appropriate. We support Traders and Salespeople across Western Europe, the majority of the time remotely, but routinely go to site as part of infrastructure refresh projects.

Over time the Agenor Trader Support Team has become the subject matter experts on navigating the complex ever changing IT landscape. We collaborate with other technical teams and they seek our input as we are the ‘eyes and ears’ on the ground and provide valuable remote knowledge. We are continually adding value, by documenting technical fixes, IT processes and procedures, and automation scripts. We automate the ‘morning check out’ process as far as possible, with use of PowerShell scripts and pinging tools. We add value by supporting the roll out of projects and are the first point of contact when anyone needs IT assistance.

The Netherlands is infamous for getting the work life balance just right, many have felt it discourteous not to take a full 1-hour lunch break away from one’s desk! We have the luxury of living a short bicycle ride away from the office, so we can be on site in 15 minutes if required. As a result, leaving early or working from home is not an issue. As a team, we split our time away from the office, some preferring later start times to attend the gym before work or leaving early to attend a language class (Dutch). We have adapted to the culture of our client organisation.

Initially, understanding the ‘Modus Operandi’ of this large complex organisation was a challenge. But now that we have adjusted our ‘operating rhythm’, we take each day in our stride and are fully aligned. Other challenges included learning who the key stakeholders are and ensuring they receive priority support.

We regularly get positive feedback about the service we provide, and often get high praise at Management level Town Hall meetings. Our morale is high, overall, and we are an engaged group of individuals making us a formidable team. We have travelled to other European offices for project related work and are enjoying the variety we experience on this engagement.

And when things do not go according to plan, we request constructive feedback, so that we can revaluate for the future. As a team and individuals, we have a raft of positive stakeholder endorsements and recommendations due to the effective support we have provided.  But don’t just take our word for it - the following is just one example of the great feedback we’ve had from our Investment Banking client in the Netherlands.

Yes, we are always learning new technical tips and tricks from each other. Additionally, since our engagement we have learned a great deal about the how a heavily regulated large organisation operates. It’s great to have the opportunity to put into practice our previously gained technical skills while continuously learning new skills on site too.

For more information about Agenor’s European Delivery Services, or to get in touch to arrange a chat about how we might help you, please look at our web pages at:

https://www.agenor.co.uk/publicsectoreuropeandeliveryservices

Agenor – Delivering Change, Managing Risk

At Agenor, we take great pride in saying that we don't position ourselves as yet another Digital Transformation consulting firm.  We prefer to think of ourselves as your end-to-end delivery partners.

Our consultancy services cover both advice and delivery capability across the whole programme life cycle from inception to implementation for some of the world’s largest organisations.

Steve Black

Head of Public Sector & European Delivery Services