Fullerton India Credit Company Limited provides a complete range of financial products and solutions customized to the requirements of mass market and low-income population segments. The company follows a customer-centric, community-based business model. Fullerton India is a subsidiary of Fullerton Financial Holdings Pte. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of the US $80 billion Temasek Holdings, Singapore. The company’s main line of business is credit lending and disbursements. Its two core product offerings are: Parivaar, dedicated to the unique requirements of the salaried individual; and Vyaapar, catering to the requirements of small shop owners and entrepreneurs.

The challenge: seamless application delivery and reduced bandwidth demand

As a newly established, non-banking financial services (NBFC) company, Fullerton India Credit Company Limited had to position its product offerings strategically in a highly competitive and crowded marketplace, even while addressing its ambitious growth vision. There was a clear-cut plan to swiftly roll out branches offering Parivaar and Vyapaar, its core loan products, in all major metros, mini-metros and towns in India. In the initial test environment encompassing 40 branches, Fullerton tested its core application, which runs on the skeleton structure of Flexcube, a banking product from i-flex solutions, and Omniflow, a document management and workflow system from Newgen Software Technology Ltd., on 64 Kbps bandwidth. But the application’s many modules and branch-side processes and the customization that Fullerton did on Flexcube and Omniflow, together with the large number of branches, kept pushing up bandwidth requirements.    

Highlighting the growing operational environment and IT infrastructure pains of a new company, Abhijeet Upponi, vice president- Enterprise IT Infrastructure, Fullerton India Credit Company Limited, said, “For us, rapid time to market in terms of rolling out branches, offering our products and making information available for our employees were key metrics. In the existing client/server environment, there were growing issues faced by a number of users at various branches. Users would complain about module accessibility problems, application configurability, desktop issues, and so forth. The advent of new processes with each branch rollout and their subsequent automation meant that bandwidth requirements also increased. Clearly, we needed to centralize application management and optimize bandwidth utilization. Coupled with that, IT had to be nimble enough to address our fast-paced business growth requirements and, critically, stay within budgeted costs.”

Implementing Citrix Presentation Server for speedy application delivery

Fullerton India addressed the challenges of new business growth and operations by implementing a solution comprising Citrix Presentation Server™ and Microsoft® Windows Server® 2003. The NBFC partnered with SK International, a Silver Citrix Solution Advisor, for a proof of concept, and Orient Technologies, a Gold Citrix Solution Advisor, to carry out the implementation in two months after a evaluation and testing period of about five months.  Currently, about 3,000 concurrent users across nearly 900 branches in four demarcated zonal regions, viz. north, south, west and east, are accessing the core i-flex application and its modules. Internet connectivity is through Close User Group (CUG) networks. The users connect via MPLS leased lines, radio frequency (RF), wireless data VPN (WDVPN) and VSAT. Each branch is given two or three data cards to ensure secure WDVPN connectivity at all times and directly onto the Citrix platform via Web Interface.
With customer satisfaction being the core company philosophy, relationship officers allocated at each branch are the primary users. They input data of prospective customers into the i-flex system using the Omniflow workflow system delivered through Citrix Presentation Server. Branch and regional managers travelling throughout states and market-specified regions also access the system from their laptops using the secure WDVPN gateway and take the call on approvals or even raise the upper limit of loans to more promising small businessmen and entrepreneurs while on the road.

Scalability is not a problem any more

Scalability was also a key criterion for deploying the Citrix solution. Fullerton India’s growth plan involved setting up milestone-driven branches and corresponding increases in the number of users at each branch. This plan encompassed 2,150 users for 500 branches, 3,225 users for 750 branches and 4,085 users for 900 branches. With Citrix technology, it has become easier to address the scalability parameter to meet business expansion requirements.  Specifically, faster branch rollouts can be achieved as complete branch readiness for application access is no longer a requirement, i.e. a branch can go live even with a minimum of four desktops. Further, there is faster and centralized application delivery and virtualized access to the application by a large number of users. Fullerton India is now on course to touch its target of 1,100 branches by the end of 2008 after a period of consolidation.
Said Upponi, “More importantly, the fast-paced growth of the company and rollout of nationwide branches have been executed within the specified budgets. This has been made possible due to Citrix technologies helping us keep CAPEX and OPEX low. With the number of projects allocated, IT budgets can tend to go out of control; however, with the Citrix solution we have stayed within limits at all times.”

Centralization propels branch expansion in record time

With the widespread popularity of its products, Fullerton India had to meet growing demand for branches in newer locations, primarily in the northern and southern part of India – its high-revenue markets.  Previously, it took a minimum of six to seven days to set up the IT systems and ensure connectivity in a particular branch.
Lauding the centralization capabilities of Presentation Server, Upponi attested to the faster rollout of branches post deployment of Citrix Presentation Server. “Previously, the allocated engineers — primarily outsourced –- had to reach a particular location, spend six or seven days to set up the site, load and configure application access on the desktops (SOAP toolkits, XML parsers, etc.) in order for the branch to become operational. Now, we can upgrade and install the core application on the central Citrix server and deliver it to the users immediately without having to send engineers to all locations. With this system, new branches are operational in about two to three days,” explained Upponi.
“In addition to faster branch openings, avoiding sending engineers on site has resulted in a huge saving of approximately four man-days per branch; an average of eight man-months every month at a rollout count of 60 branches per month. Within five months of implementing the Citrix environment, a total of 35 to 40 man-months had been saved. These have been put to better use on other fronts.”
In the current centralized environment, whenever more modules are added to the core application, changes do not have to be done on all desktops. They are installed on the 40 servers in the central control station during downtimes planned overnight on certain days.

Bandwidth costs cut by 50 percent

Previously, bandwidth requirements at all the branches were immense. In September 2007, bandwidth increased from 64 Kbps to 256 Kbps – a four-fold increase in bandwidth spends. Upponi added that Citrix has enabled bandwidth optimization and efficient, centralized application management. This ensures that only a specific number of users from every branch connect concurrently, thereby not exceeding the allotted bandwidth limits. These two factors are helping Fullerton India to bring down bandwidth costs by 50 percent.
Said Upponi, “ Previously, our branches had access to the core application at 64 Kbps, and then it went up to 256 Kbps before being brought down to half of that in recent months. All bandwidth issues have been addressed satisfactorily now.”

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