Name: Ray Strecker
Email:
Bio: Senior Vice President, Virtusa Corporation. Ray heads Virtusa’s global business in banking and financial services, building Virtusa’s relationships with its customers. Ray brings over 30 years of IT services experience as a practitioner and business executive providing consulting, software, and application development to the industry. He specializes in launching new practices and offerings. Prior to Virtusa, Ray led TCS’ Global Consulting Practice for North America, joining shortly after its inception and building its highly successful IT optimization practice. At Dell, Ray was director of professional services for the Northeast, providing a variety of application and IT infrastructure offerings to a diverse base of financial and commercial clients. Prior to its acquisition by Dell, Ray headed the NY region of Plural, a firm specializing in Microsoft-based application work for major investment banks and other clients. At American Management Systems (AMS) he was co-head for global banking in North America. Ray started practices and led major engagements in investment banking, risk management, Year 2000, international trade services, organizational development, and large-scale program management. Ray holds an MBA, with distinction, from the Wharton School, as well as an MS in computer science and a BA summa cum laude in Psychology, both from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Ray is an enthusiastic tennis player, skier, fitness enthusiast, crossword puzzler and cook. Making his home in Jersey City, NJ, he is married with three grown children.
Posts by RStrecker:
Banking and Financial Services: 5 Key Technology Trends for 2012
December 14th, 2011The economy has disappointed in 2011, and 2012 looks similar. In the US, the housing crisis and high unemployment persist. The euro debt crisis threatens Europe with recession. Healthier regions like Asia are too small and too export-oriented to escape a downturn in the West. The best macro case appears to be halting progress on structural issues and continued weak growth.
Despite this, IT spend in banking and financial services grew in 2011 and looks poised for modest growth in 2012. Why is this happening? Banks and securities firms feel pressure both to reduce costs and to innovate. There are multiple ways to cut costs but the only way to simultaneously reduce unit costs and innovate is through Read the rest of this entry “
Launching Enterprise Mobility Services – A Primer for Product Managers
May 19th, 2011Over the past year, few technology developments have challenged IT staffs more than the mobility wave. Two years ago it was the social phenomenon. Now it’s mobile computing. Virtusa’s BFS business unit has seen a surge in the number of inquiries regarding mobile. And now, the questions are not about “if”, they are about “how”. Here is a familiar scenario.
You’re a product manager in a major financial or commercial company and you have just gotten the assignment of launching a mobile version of your product. You’re thrilled but you’re terrified. Your mind is racing. Where do you start? Pour yourself an herb tea or some other relaxing drink, realize that it will not be easy, and start planning. Even the organizations that appear as though they are miles ahead of you have probably only “mobilized” a small subset of their potential offerings. A major bank, for example, may be offering some exciting consumer goodies but, if you knew the mobile product team, they would tell you they have barely scratched the surface. The same bank’s B2B offerings are probably still on the drawing board at best. Read the rest of this entry “
