Overview
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (commonly known as the SEC) is an independent agency of the United States government that holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets.
The mission of the U.S. Securities & Exchange commission (SEC) is to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets and facilitate capital formation. Within the SEC is the Office of Information Technology (OIT) that supports the SEC in all aspects of technology.
In order for OIT to operate consistently and efficiently, policies have been created that govern the decision making and analysis of government decisions. Shaping the policy is a complex and multifaceted process that involves the interplay of numerous individuals and interest groups collaborating to develop the final published policy.
After recognizing the shortcomings in the management of IT policies, the SEC partnered with H3 Solutions to modernize its operation of policy.
Business Problem
The legacy IT policy management process at the SEC presented the organization with several significant business challenges. For example, the organization’s IT policies were scattered across numerous homegrown databases and spreadsheets. Additionally, the rigorous process for reviewing and developing policy contributed to the complexities of policies existing in multiple states of varying completion As a result, the SEC lacked a comprehensive capability to manage, control and distribute IT policy.
The SEC’s legacy process provided no coordinated strategy to guide the development and collaborative review of new and existing policy. The policy had traditionally been developed in isolation, resulting in a limited ability to share data. There was no common technology platform, and no coherent vision of how policy should collectively support the SEC.
And while the separate and disjointed data sources contained similar information, they required duplicate manual data entry or manually initiated data transfers that were time consuming and prone to error.
It quickly became apparent that the SEC needed a modernized information system that would resolve the dysfunctional policy management process. The new solution would need to support the creation of more efficient business processes and enable information to flow in a way that supports the mission of the SEC.
The SEC approached the agile software development firm, H3 Solutions, and together, developed CPS Collaborative Policy Solution (CPS).
Solution
CPS is a comprehensive Web-based solution constructed using Microsoft Office SharePoint® that enables the SEC to manage and analyze knowledge about the IT policies. It features an intuitive and familiar user interface, making it easy to learn and use (even though it has a rich feature set). Its core features include the ability to:
- Document Collaboration
- Real-time presence and communication
- Workflow
Results
As a result of the thorough analysis process and iterative development effort behind this project, the SEC benefits from a highly tailored solution that supports a very specific business process.
For individual users, the Collaborative Policy Solution process automation significantly reduces administrative burdens by eliminating time-consuming manual tasks. The CPS solution is a quintessential example of a government IT success story. It furthers the aims of government by improving key internal government transactions.
(C) 2009 H3 Solutions Incorporated. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. H3 SOLUTIONS MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Document published June 2009