Company
Philico is a consulting firm focussing on the financial services industry. Our mission is to create value for our clients along the IT project life cycle by providing specialized services.
Our services are distinguished through experienced and highly specialized consultants. Our people combine business analysis, technical skills and project management capacity on your IT project.
Our focus technology is the Avaloq banking system with emphasis on digital solutions, regulatory compliance and payments.
We’re pleased to announce that Philico has formally been recognized as an Avaloq Implementation Partner. For more details please visit the Avaloq news section.
Alex Müller
Partner
Alex is a founding partner of Philico and holds a master’s degree in information management from the University of Zurich. He gained extensive experience on manifold IT projects. Alex started his career in a big five consulting firm serving insurance companies and banks. While working for an Avaloq consultancy, he specialized in regulatory topics and taxes and is today one of the experts in the marketplace. In his free time, Alex likes to discover new places and fishing. He is based in Zurich.
Fabian Knecht
Partner
Fabian is a founding partner of Philico and holds a master’s degree in interdisciplinary sciences from ETH Zurich as well as a master’s degree in neuroinformatics from the university of Exeter (UK). He started is career as a scientist for a biotech company. While working for an Avaloq consultancy on large implementation projects around the globe, he gained highest technical and functional expertise with the Avaloq banking system. With over a decade of, banking, IT and Avaloq experience, Fabian is highly recognized within the community. He spends his free time with his family and is passionate about travelling. Fabian is based in Geneva.
Fabien Roth
Partner
Fabien joined Philico as a partner and holds a bachelor’s degree in information management from the University of Applied Sciences, Western Switzerland. He also graduated from the Swiss Financial Analysts Association as a Certified International Investment Analyst (CIIA). After his studies, Fabien started his career at an Avaloq consultancy and acquired his expertise on many assignments across Europe. Fabien spends his spare time outdoors; he is passionate about skiing, sailing and fishing. Fabien is based in Geneva.
Services
Thanks to our longstanding experience on IT projects, our work is efficient and sustainable. Our people help to overcome the gap between business and IT with their strong consulting skills, technical expertise in Avaloq and banking.
Project Management
Financial sector mixed with IT technology lead to complex projects. As company executives deal with the daily responsibilities of managing the organization, it is important to use dedicated project managers to oversee those complex projects from conception to completion.Philico’s project managers have been trained to acquire the strategic competencies needed to manage every aspect of the projects they oversee, from resources and suppliers to project costs and development.Philico’s experts will help you to:
- Determine project scope
- Develop a high-level estimation of the project size in hours and cost
- Develop the detailed WBS
- Plan in detail the implementation activities and details overall timeline
- Identify capacity requirements and develop a human resources plan to meet them
- Monitor the progress against plans
- Monitor risks and issues
- Manage change requests
- Build a communication plan and Communicate project status to project stakeholders
- Review the quality of the projects and collect feedbacks for lessons learnt
Business Consulting
Information Technology has become a key business function for almost every organisation. They have great expectations of their investment in IT for the future benefits to the business like costs reduction, productivity enhancement, competitive advantage gain by exploiting new IT infrastructure, etc.The main objective of Philico’s Business consultants is to make sure that the business strategy can be realized through technology and that technology investments are aligned to Business needs.Philico’s experts will help you to:
- Leverage business returns with adapted IT strategy
- Synchronize IT strategy with business-oriented goals
- Integrate business insight with technological possibilities
- Analyse and optimize your processes
- Provides support and information to assist in the running or future strategy of a business
- Analyse of existing organizational problems and develop plans for improvement
- Access industry ‘best practices’
- Make sure that all stakeholders’ interests are taken into account and that processes provide measurable results
Change Management
When the technology has been bought and new processes have been implemented, the benefits can only be realized when people are willing and able to use them. Changing people’s attitudes and behaviours is one of the biggest challenges in implementing new software systems.Philico’s expert will help you to plan and implement the change in such a way as to minimize employee resistance and cost to the organization while simultaneously maximizing the effectiveness of the change effort.Philico’s experts will help you to:
- Involve stakeholders in the change process by seeking their input during the analysis and design stages
- Identify and plan changes to the organizational structure
- Define the change management strategy
- Develop a Communications Strategy
- Undertake risk assessment and risk management
- Develop the change management plans
- Implement and coordinate the plan
- Collect and analyse users’ feedback
- Diagnose gaps and manage resistances
- Assess whether objectives have been met
- Implement the corrective actions
Avaloq Banking Solution
The Avaloq Banking Solution is a world leading integrated and standardized banking software offering back, middle and front office solutions covering the actual and future needs of banking institutions.Implementing a new core banking software is one of the most challenging initiatives a bank can undertake. It is often referred as an open-heart surgery – the core IT system being that critical to the life of a bank. The new-product implementation process is complex and multi-dimensional. It requires considerable professional expertise and the ability to make decisions in uncertain situations.
Philico’s experts will help you to:
- Analyse and document functional and technical gaps between as is and to be
- Describe and document required uses cases
- Parameterize Avaloq Banking System
- Module implementation
- Migration scripts
- Interfaces development
- Define and implement testing solutions
- Manage change requests
- Develop training methodology and deliver end users coaching
- Develop the cut-over plan
- Stabilize the post go-live solution
Avaloq Expertise
Philico’s analysis and design methodology starts by identifying business needs and business processes. Knowing the way users work and understanding their key needs is essential to parameterize correctly the final solution and met the expectations. Once the target objectives are set, the effort estimations and the required tasks are formally defined and documented.
Philico expertise:
- As is and to be analysis of the business processes and its IT applications
- Software evaluation, Avaloq modules and third party applications
- Effort estimations
- Project setup organisation
- Requirement gathering
- Requirement analysis
After having defined the scope and specific requirements, the implementation phase start. Philico’s expert will adapt and parameterize the Avaloq Banking System according to the A&D documentation. When performing the implementation, user’s feedbacks as well as validating the progression are our key factors to guarantee that deliverables will meet requirements. Therefore key users are involved at the very beginning of the implementation and along the whole project phase.
Philico expertise:
- Deep technical and functional Avaloq Banking System know-how
- Modules parameterization
- Interfaces parameterization
- Data migration support
- Stream leading
- Change request management
- Progress tracking
Before starting the testing phase, final user acceptance criteria will be agreed and specified. These criteria will guarantee that the implementation fulfilled the requirements, the solution being in accordance with the specification. At Philico, the testing phase is seen as an ongoing process, which starts already during the implementation, when modules tests and functionalities tests are completed assuring the quality of the development. The process goes ahead with the integration test where all modules are tested simultaneously assuring that no side affects arise. Finally, user acceptance tests are performed to assure all the functionalities are in line with business requirements.
Philico expertise:
- Test strategy definition
- Acceptance criteria definition
- Test case definition
- Modules test implementation
- Code review according to best practices
- Integration tests
- User acceptation test
- Bugs & Issues prioritisation, categorisation and review
At Philico, we believe that the know-how is the force which drives every organizations. Therefore, when new processes and news functionalities are implemented in the organisation, it is essential to allow the people to acquire the know-how as fast as possible. Philico’s expert will help you to define and implement the appropriate coaching strategy based and organizational and business needs.
Philico expertise:
- Coaching strategy definition
- Develop coaching plan
- Implement coaching method
- Develop coaching material
- Organize Avaloq modules coaching lessons
- Assess coaching results
The final phase before going live with the new core banking system is called the cutover. This phase involves the complex coordination of many people and many individual tasks to ensure a smoothly transition between both systems. This phase should be planned and prepared well in advance to reduce any unforeseen events. Therefore Philico will help you to plan your cutover and to organise cutover rehearsals and simulations with actual timing.
Philico expertise:
- Cutover rehearsal & simulation strategy and planning
- Cutover plan definition
- Contingency and fallback planning
- Resources planning
- Communication planning
- Post production release plan
Following a success full go-live, post-production support is the final phase of an ABS implementation and is as important as any other phases. This phase is intended to manage the daily system operations and ensure the system is doing exactly what it needs to. This phase may also include additional development on requirements not in scope of initial delivery.
Philico expertise:
- Immediate resolution of high category issues
- Additional development
- Data correction
- Identifying and managing production support issues
- Post Implementation review
Career
What do we offer?
We are a steadily growing consulting boutique that depends on the ideas, contribution and commitment of all employees. We will spare no effort to enable you in your role. We offer the unique opportunity to be part of a dynamic and yet familial team with the ultimate goal to provide efficient consulting services in the rapidly changing IT landscape.
What are we looking for?
We are looking for highly self-motivated and skilled people, which are curious in nature. You have to have an open and adaptive mindset to respond to our client’s quickly changing priorities. You have to be a good listener, analytical thinker and a continuous willingness to learn. Your personal fit to the company is very important to us.
Junior Consultant
As a Junior Avaloq Consultant you will attend professional training on the Avaloq Banking Suite at the Avaloq academy. You will also receive on the job mentoring by our experienced consultants to increase your level of expertise and to ensure that you are comfortable engaging with clients. You will be assigned to a client project and will work hand in hand with an experienced team to deliver IT solutions for our clients.Responsibilities
- Definition of technical and business specifications
- Parameterization of Avaloq Banking Suite modules
- End-user training
Qualifications
- University degree or equivalent
- Avaloq certified professional
- 1-2 years of experience in the financial sector and/or with the Avaloq Banking Suite is a plus
- Strong programming skills
- Good written and spoken English command. Written and spoken fluency in either French or German, ideally both
Personality
- Profound interest in banking and IT
- Strong problem solving skills and analytical thinking
- Delivery and results oriented
- Reliable, and efficient in working under pressure
- Excellent team player
- Willing to travel frequently in Switzerland and abroad
- Client centric mindset
Junior ConsultantSenior Avaloq Consultant
As a Senior Avaloq Consultant you will work closely with our clients to analyse, design and adapt the Avaloq Banking Suite. You will have delivery and project management tasks as well as internal responsibilities. As an experienced consultant, you will also contribute to our extensive coaching culture to enable our younger colleagues.Responsibilities
- Requirements analysis
- Design and implementation in the Avaloq Banking System in close collaboration with the clients
- Provide business and technical expertise to optimize client processes
- End-user work shops and training
- Team members coaching
- Project management
Qualifications
- University degree or equivalent
- Avaloq certified professional
- 3-6 years of experience in the financial services industry
- Strong technical skills
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
- Good written and spoken English command. Written and spoken fluency in either French or German, ideally both.
Personality
- Profound interest in banking and IT
- Strong problem solving skills and analytical thinking
- Delivery and results oriented
- Reliable and efficient in working under pressure
- Excellent team player
- Willing to travel frequently in Switzerland and abroad
- Client centric mindset
CONTACT US
- Kalabinth 22, CH-9042 Speicher
- +41 79 237 53 48
- info(at)philico.com