The Foreign Exchange Office is seeking an external service provider to support the redesign of its information system architecture and develop a comprehensive transformation roadmap. According to sources consulted by TelQuel, the agency says the initiative is driven by the need to modernize an infrastructure it describes as “heterogeneous”  spread across multiple sites and shaped by successive waves of technological change.

The Office’s information system currently relies on two data centers, one dedicated to production and the other to testing and development, which are interconnected with several remote sites. While functional, the agency says the architecture suffers from “a lack of overall consistency that complicates the management of technical resources and integration between applications.”

The selected service provider will be tasked with reviewing all of the Office’s operations, including management, core business, and support functions, as well as its entire information systems environment, covering hardware, applications, and connections with external partners.

Six phases of work

The project is structured into several successive phases. The first involves defining the project’s scope, establishing the implementation methodology, and setting up a dedicated governance framework. According to the Foreign Exchange Office, awareness sessions will also be held for the internal teams involved in the project.

The next phase consists of a comprehensive assessment of the existing system, covering the Office’s application, technical, data, and security architectures. The objective is to identify redundancies, incompatibilities, and potential vulnerabilities while evaluating the overall maturity of the current environment.

Based on these findings, the service provider will design a target architecture that meets several key requirements, including high availability, business continuity, enhanced security, flexibility, and resilience. At least three implementation scenarios must be proposed and assessed against technical, organizational, and financial criteria before a final option is selected.

Roadmap and knowledge transfer

Once the target architecture has been defined, the service provider will be required to prepare a detailed, costed roadmap, including a prioritized portfolio of projects and a multi-year financing plan. The roadmap will also include an organizational model defining the roles and responsibilities of internal teams, along with a training and staff redeployment plan.

The final phase of the project focuses on implementation support. The service provider will train internal teams on the new tools and procedures and assist with the rollout of two pilot projects selected in consultation with the relevant departments.

According to sources consulted by TelQuel, the entire assignment is expected to last seven months, with interim reports presented to the institution’s management at the end of each phase.

Written in French by Younes Saoury, edited in English by Amina Kadiri