Consult: Implementation & Transformation
From architecture to production.
Build-out of trading, risk, and regulatory infrastructure, architecture, vendor and platform selection, delivery. Opinionated, deadline-driven, production-minded.
At a glance
Why a build programme
Resilience, integration, and legacy, moved from finding to fix.
The FCA has been explicit on the supervisory expectation: where weaknesses in operational resilience are identified, firms are expected to act at pace, not to defer to the next planning cycle.
That is the work this engagement does. Architecture, vendor selection, programme delivery, and post-go-live stabilisation, opinionated, deadline-driven, and run by the senior team that has built the systems in question. The point is not the diagnosis. The point is moving from finding to production-ready stack.
SUPERVISORY VIEW
Where weaknesses in operational resilience are identified, trading venues will be expected to act at pace. For example, by investing in improved processes, better infrastructure or training, building back-up systems, addressing vulnerabilities in legacy systems or improving contingency plans.
– FCA · Trading Venues Portfolio Letter (Dec 2024)
What it covers
Architecture through delivery, end to end.
An implementation engagement typically starts with an architecture phase, target-state design, integration patterns, data flows, and the set of build-versus-buy calls that determine the shape of the programme.
From there it moves through vendor and platform selection (RFP drafting, evaluation framework, shortlisting, commercial negotiation) into delivery, programme governance, milestone-based execution, and technical leadership maintained throughout to ensure vendor commitments are met.
Post-go-live operations sit in scope where the firm wants continuity: the team that delivered the build is the team that knows how it should behave in production.
- 01 Weeks 1–2; MobilisationProgramme charter, governance forum, RACI, risk register. Sponsor and steering-group cadence locked.
- 02 Weeks 3–6; ArchitectureTarget-state design, integration patterns, data flows. Build-versus-buy decisions evidenced.
- 03 Weeks 5–10; SelectionRFP drafting, evaluation rubric, reference calls, commercial negotiation. Runs in parallel with architecture.
- 04 Weeks 8–N; DeliveryMilestone-based execution, vendor accountability, hands-on intervention when integrations stall.
- 05 Stabilisation; go-live supportProduction-incident triage, runbook authoring, on-call shadowing with the receiving team.
- 06 Handover; Steady stateOperating-model transition, knowledge transfer, named successor on the client side.
Four phases,
one accountable team.
Implementation work breaks naturally into four phases, and the same senior leads carry through every one of them.
Target-state architecture
Target-state design grounded in real trading microstructure and realistic integration constraints. Architecture documents that engineering teams and vendors can actually build against.
TARGET-STATE · INTEGRATION
Vendor & platform selection
RFP drafting, evaluation rubrics, reference-checking, and commercial negotiation. Evaluations grounded in what the platforms actually do in production.
RFP · EVALUATION
Delivery programmes
Senior-led programme management with direct technical involvement. Milestone-based delivery, vendor accountability, realistic risk tracking, and board-grade reporting, with hands-on intervention when integrations require it.
PROGRAMME · ACCOUNTABILITY
Post-go-live operations
Stabilisation and the handover into a sustainable operating model. The transition out of programme mode is where most implementations quietly fail, we stay long enough to make sure it doesn't.
STABILISATION · HANDOVER
Mobilisation artefact
A programme charter the steering group can sign.
Every implementation engagement opens with a programme charter, the document that turns a scoping conversation into an accountable delivery plan. Scope, success criteria, governance forum, decision rights, escalation routes, and the milestone schedule against which the programme will be tracked.
Charter sign-off precedes any build work. It is the artefact the steering group, the sponsoring executive, and (where needed) the board approve before the programme moves out of mobilisation. A short document, deliberately, five to ten pages, no filler.
Trading-Stack Implementation; Programme Charter
Why Ediphy
Senior, native to the stack, structured to deliver and hand over.
The default alternative for this kind of work is one of the Big-4 delivery shops. Their model is mid-weight teams at scale, billed on a time-and-materials schedule whose economics favour programme duration.
Ours is the inverse, a small senior team, native to the fixed-income stack, incentivised to deliver and hand over. When Ediphy Consult advises on architecture, it is the same people who designed the Ediphy platform. When they negotiate with a vendor, they have evaluated or built competing offerings. When they inform a board that a milestone is at risk, it is because they have reviewed the code.
| Ediphy Consult | Big-4 delivery | Boutique consultancy | Internal hire | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Senior throughout, no junior layer | – | Partial | ||
| Native to the fixed-income stack | – | Partial | Variable | |
| Incentivised to deliver and hand over | – | |||
| Vendor-negotiation experience | Partial | – | ||
| Stays through stabilisation | Partial | – |