Life expectancy: managing the IT portfolio of a pension administrator

Cordares is a financial services firm specialized in managing assets and liabilities (the corresponding individual pension rights) for pension funds. Traditionally IT-oriented, Cordares depends on IT to ensure cost leadership in its business of pension administration and IT currently accounts for 40% of Cordares’ total expenses. IT governance and IT portfolio management are therefore key issues, even more so considering the extreme length of necessary data consistency. The average life of an individual pension scheme starts at about 25 years of age and will probably end at around the age of 80. Portfolio management at Cordares is characterized by strict benchmarking of system development practice, simple and effective measurement of costs (both operational and software maintenance) and a relentless system of kill management, replacing systems that jeopardize the efficiency advantage. Of each instrument of governance, real-life examples are shown. We also relate our findings to mainstream scientific results.