Merrill Lynch connects Past and Future Technology

Q1. Why did Merrill Lynch need to update its IT infrastructure?
Ans: Merrill Lynch had needed to update the IT infrastructure because of its critical role in the business operation. The technology platform of the past had been the key success in generating revenue and growth of the firm. It is the technology that had given Merrill Lynch a competitive advantage in the growing financial market.

Thus, in order to stay competitive, Merrill Lynch is compelled to modernize their infrastructure technology.

Q2. What is the relationship of information technology to Merrill Lynch’s business strategy? How was its web services initiative related to that strategy?
Ans: The information technology is very much embedded into Merrill Lynch business strategy. The company processes around 23,000 programs with 80 million daily on-line transactions shows a crucial role played by information technology. It is vital to the company to handle such volume of data, to better serve their clients and brokers.

The web service facilitates the business strategy of Merrill Lynch by making their operations more convenient and effective to their customers. It ensured security of the private information and provides flexibility in choosing the applications. On top, it also allows the firm to correct errors before launching the services. As such, Merrill Lynch saved $41 million in application development costs and boosted their investment by selling X4ML (web service tools) to SOA Software Inc.

Not to mention, the web service conformed the current mainframe security as well as web security for inscription, authentication and authorization.