The Challenge
The senior management team had just completed their strategic planning session. Internationally, sales of American Express Travelers Cheques were up across the board. Domestically, sales were nearly flat and expected to decline. Management needed to reengineer this century old product concept with 21st Century technology. In doing so, senior management hoped to reverse the current domestic sales trend.
The Division was renamed the Stored Value Group signifying the new direction. The new product was called TravelFunds - a plastic card that would be purchased by individuals and funded in advance of use. The product was announced to the sales team and they quickly spread word to the client base comprised of hundreds of banks across the United States. One client was very anxious to use this new the Stored Value Card, so management committed to delivering the product on a specific future date. Now management needed a team to deliver the product and supporting technology. Typical product development effort within the organization, and card industry in general, took anywhere from 12 to 18 months. The clock was ticking.
The Solution
Senior management brought in a consultant to define the high level technical infrastructure necessary to deliver the product. The development team at that point consisted of a handful of software developers located in an out-of-state shop and a part-time business analyst. Senior management also brought in a senior level Product Development Manager to take over the entire effort. The committed product delivery date was only FIVE MONTHS away.
The Product Development Manager quickly added critical resources to the project. The entire team understood the full vision and role of each player. One third-party processor was selected to perform specific “back-end” functions such as card account set up, transaction posting, and statementing. Another was selected to support card issuance. Software supporting customer service functions needed to be built. The American Express international merchant network, the “front-end”, needed to be modified in order to accept the new cards. Interfaces between all of these systems had to be built to ensure smooth and complete end-to-end processing.
The Result
Requirements were written in record time. The technical development staff completed their design and coding effort in record time as well. A 24x7 customer service team was assembles and trained in advance of the product delivery. The actual live date was three days ahead of the committed delivery date. This product development and launch effort was by far the fastest in the company’s history. Due to the technical design of the original product, two additional products, IncentiveFunds and GovernmentFunds, were launched within the next four months, achieving the full year goal of the division. A fourth product, which included a smart chip, was introduced shortly thereafter. The product development team received the company’s highest performance award, i.e., the Chairman’s Award.
The team was expanded and proposed a much more robust platform that would allow for significant growth. Fourteen months after organizational approval, the Global Product Platform went live. The team again received the Chairman’s Award. That system is still in use at American Express, supporting over 200,000,000 card accounts.