Alfa, a provider of systems and services to auto and equipment finance companies, published a new paper in its series on systems change, Innovation in Implementation.

The new paper is titled “Agility in Data Migration – Onboarding Portfolios Efficiently and Effectively” and focuses on data migration, which is often thought of as the most challenging aspect of a systems implementation project. The report explores how agile techniques can minimize risk when manipulating large volumes of sensitive data and discusses how cross-functional teams, when empowered to drive pragmatic scoping decisions, can accelerate the delivery of business value and provide robust support for future onboarding.

“At Alfa, we consider ourselves industry leaders in data migration, be that migrating portfolios from legacy applications as part of a system implementation or onboarding newly acquired portfolios to an established system,” Sam Fairhurst, a senior project manager at Alfa and author of the paper, said. “In this paper, I’ve looked to show how agile techniques should be at the core of data migration methodology — regardless of whether the launch will be multi-phased or ‘big-bang’ — and that focusing on the right balance of pragmatism and functional richness will maximize business value within project-friendly time frames.”

The new paper is the second in Alfa’s Innovation in Implementation series, in which various individuals from Alfa discuss how asset finance organizations can improve software implementations. The first paper was titled “De-risking Your Systems Replacement Project through Phased Implementation” and discussed how lessons learned from the industry, alongside the rise of agile methodologies, have prompted alternative, phased implementation approaches which present an opportunity for companies to move away from traditional models that bring a high level of risk, complexity and cost.