Do you mean that more software is required to run your software?
It was around March 1999 and I was working at a small software company (CITIL – Citicorp Information Technology Industries Limited) that specialized in basic banking products. This company became a giant in the core banking space and was subsequently acquired by Oracle in 2005. In the late 90s, if you worked at a software company by default, you would land in the US or UK on a Project.
I had an eventful association with CITIL for a long time and about 90% of their core banking business came from Africa. So by default, if I traveled from this company on a project, it was to Africa. My friends used to freak out when I told them I was going to an African country on a software project. The reason is that Africa and software never went hand in hand for many in those days and I suppose it could be true today as well. .
In the midst of this background, I had gone to the office one day and everything was as usual when one of my bosses (I never used to know who my boss was in those days, as we had resources in a group and cherry picking bosses used to choosing the right fruits for the right task) she called me with all her 32 pearly whites visible and said “I WANT YOU TO TRAVEL” – I was just dreading the moment as I had just returned from Ghana (for those of you wondering where Ghana is – it’s in West Africa) after an 8-month assignment. I held back my emotions, but to no avail: my boss could see the pain on my face, so he did a ‘Sweetener Project’ and it was that I would travel to Vanuatu, an island, a paradise. I had never heard this name before “. VANUATU” – I wanted to make sure I heard it correctly – I asked my boss what country it was the second time he said Vanuatu and it is in the Pacific islands. He said that he will go to lunch and that he will talk to me after lunch about the project.
In those days, in the absence of Google or any online search engine, I went to the library to find out where Vanuatu was. I took out the Atlas and sat down next to the globe that was there in the library. After a microscopic search I realized that it was a small island in the South Pacific Ocean. Then my mind was on the travel route and I realized I had to travel via Sydney or Auckland. Emotion shot up inside me.
Finally came the “D” day I traveled to Vanuatu (Bangalore -Singapore-Auckland-Vanuatu). I was simply blown away by my first impression of Vanuatu – it was simply paradise – beautiful unspoilt beaches, lush greenery and happy go lucky locals, I arrived at the hotel where I was supposed to stay and then reality hit me. He had come for a software project and not for a vacation.
The next day, armed with my software kit and ubiquitous bag, I set out to start my first day on the project. I was greeted by an elderly Australian man in his 50s. After a brief introduction, he introduced me to the bank’s management team, who were all Australian by the way. So I posted the paperwork that was supposed to start with installing the software on the bank’s server. The operations manager introduced me to the head of IT (local Vanuatu) and said that he would show me the server where the software needed to be installed.
As I was walking around with the IT head, I asked him what kind of server is there that is used for production. The response from him was “white server and a big one”. His response sent a few shivers down my spine as I realized the enormity of the task in front of me. I finally got the server my fortune and life would be associated with for the next 7 months.
I started my work in all seriousness, downloaded the contents of the CD to the server and wrote the required commands to the server. The banking software – Microbanker (MB) – (Microbanker was the previous avatar of the current FLEXCUBE software) would not install even after giving the necessary commands and I started my research process. After a little research, I realized that the environment software needed to run our banking software was not installed on the server. I asked about the same to the head of IT.
The discussion went something like the following between the IT head and myself:
Bank IT Manager: What’s the problem? “You mean you need something called an operating system and environmental software to run your software?”
Me: !@#$ u… maan… (I was pretending to smile)
I almost lost my cool, thought it might not be careful to get into a direct confrontation on day 1. I spoon-fed him or rather I fed him that the operating system and environmental software are required to run our app. In fairness to the IT manager, he seemed to have picked up on what he had said fairly quickly, and in turn passed it on to the operations manager.
All hell broke loose when the problem escalated as the bank blamed me and the company for not informing them sooner that some environmental software needed to be implemented. I had to make up lost ground as I was being blamed through no fault of my own. My presence of mind, despite the mounting pressure, made me tell the bank that this would have been mentioned as part of the contract. To my bad luck, the contract never mentioned it and it took some persuasion skills to appease the bank.
The problem here was that the project implementation needed to be completed within a certain time frame and the required environmental software (Business Basic BBX) was not readily available off the shelf. We had to contact the vendor in the US who said that it will take 3 weeks for him to deliver the software and on top of that it was costing the bank $200,000. This was something the bank had not budgeted for. as the bank was not ready for this kind of spending all of a sudden. They knew that if the environmental software was not obtained, the actual project could not start. The order was finally placed and the software arrived after a month or so.
What happened later in the project caused me to go through various emotions over the next 8 months: anger, laughing at myself, frustration, inspiration, helplessness, determination to make things work through thick and thin… I can probably write a book or even make a short film about my experience in Vanuatu. Going back to the main story, the implementation project went live after the installation phase and had its own share of challenges. In between I got to enjoy the local Melanesian hospitality and visit some of the local islands and the only living volcano in the world.