M&T Bank: The Importance of Human Relationships in Modernization

By Milan Shetti, CEO Rocket Software

M&T Bank is a community-focused banking franchise with approximately $140 billion in assets, and a network of 700 branches across New York, to Virginia, and the District of Columbia. They offer advice, guidance, expertise, and solutions across the entire financial spectrum. M&T’s purpose is to understand the individuals and the businesses in their neighborhoods, so they can create the right opportunities for the people they serve.

M&T recently vowed to recommit its focus on serving customers. The company began to embrace an agile operating model and insource technology talent, knowing that to remain competitive, speed to market was critical. To achieve its goals, M&T knew it needed to make its mainframe data stores and processes accessible to other computing platforms in near real-time. Considering the security, interoperability, and usability that are unique to mainframe environments, M&T looked to Rocket Software to work in lockstep to execute on its plan to modernize.

Finding the right solution and partner

The company chose to partner with Rocket on a Digital Integration Hub (DIH), an architecture that synchronizes deployment for efficient access to mainframe data, limits business disruptions, and simplifies the development process.

The solution consumes data continually, which produces consistent, up-to-date information, and generates more accurate results. More importantly, the data can be accessed anywhere, anytime for reuse in other transactions or analytics systems in near real-time. It is also accessible with a self-service model, which reduces business disruption. By having information centralized, employee workflows — from DevOps to customer service — are streamlined. It’s a winning business model.

Putting a focus on customer service

Rocket’s input helped inform M&T’s decisions and track progress so that developers could effectively test new solutions and determine how they add value. The human side of modernization or digital transformation can often get lost, but Rocket places an emphasis on building human relationships throughout these processes. By doing so, Rocket Software helped M&T employees prepare to execute solutions and promoted collaboration in each successive phase.

Great customer service is the cornerstone of a great partnership. When modernization teams consistently provide the highest levels of customer support to their customers, like M&T—allowing for customization of the software itself to make sure all needs are being met. It’s a true partnership at work.

The benefits of exceptional customer service

Through its partnership with Rocket on this project, M&T saw clear results from its modernization journey that expanded beyond the technical benefits. M&T was able to meet major milestones thanks to the relationships and skills Rocket built, allowing for M&T teams to feel comfortable and ready to deploy the solution effectively. And lastly, M&T felt comfortable through the modernization process because it knew it could expect speedy responses from the Rocket team on any questions.

Modernization is not just about having the right tools. The biggest challenges often arise in shifting the organizational mentality surrounding transformation, which is why Rocket prioritizes sharing ideas through collaboration and communication to facilitate innovation. It’s about building the human relationships needed to execute on bold ideas.

At Rocket, we’re all about bold ideas and helping our clients put them into action. To learn more about our suite of modernization products, click here.