First Abu Dhabi Bank

“We can’t rely on customers to tell us something is wrong. That would be unacceptable,” says Emma Lewis, Head of Technology Service Management at FAB. “We need complete visibility across everything that’s happening within our applications so we can spot and address performance issues before they do.”

To that end, FAB completed an audit to determine where it needed to focus its IT investment to break down data silos and gain more control over the customer experience. One opportunity stood out: the need to improve application performance management.

FAB initially onboarded 60 business applications onto AppDynamics — but strong results and positive feedback from employees saw that figure rise to 120 applications just one year after going live. Today, the company uses AppDynamics to monitor 180+ applications, delivering value to teams across the organization. Perform IT supports the local FAB team in their effort to standardize onboarding and enable application teams in the right usage of the tool.

“We saw instant results from AppDynamics, and the speed with which we continue to onboard new applications onto the solution is a testament to the value it delivers,” says Navid Thakur, Vice President of Enterprise Tools and Automation at FAB. “It’s also a testament to our employees and their commitment to continuous improvement of our services.”

The impact of AppDynamics as part of the journey to full-stack observability has been widespread, enhancing performance of FAB’s business, IT operations, and development and testing teams. The solution broke down silos between these functions, which now work together closely to detect, alert and resolve performance issues in record time.

“By managing application performance more proactively with Cisco AppDynamics as part of our effort towards full-stack observability, we’re providing concrete value to the entire business. More than 180 applications now run with fewer incidents and improved availability, which means less effort for our teams and a better experience for customers,” says Navid Thakur.

“Our goal is for every service team at FAB to have AppDynamics open all day, every day — not only to deal with performance issues and keep our business running smoothly, but also to dive deeper to better understand how our systems behave and uncover new ways to make our applications stronger than ever,” says Emma Lewis. “How can we reduce response times? How can we eliminate blips and service issues at peak demand periods? How can we make the experience better for customers? These are the questions that can transform the way we work and serve the market, and now we have a solution that can help us find the answers we need,” she adds.

FAB also plans to shift its application development to cloud microservices in the long term, managed and deployed via Kubernetes. Visibility into application performance will be essential in the new environment — yet another reason the bank has adopted AppDynamics to help modernize its IT operations. 

Trailblazing a better experience for customers and employees alike

The first phase of FAB’s undertaking aimed to reduce downtime and performance incidents across its application portfolio, has been a resounding success. Following a recent benefit realization exercise, dozens of employees reported improved uptime and faster issue resolution thanks to their use of AppDynamics to monitor and manage application performance. 

For instance, FAB saw a 61% reduction in downtime for a business-critical service providing point-of-sale and integrated self-service banking, an 87% reduction in downtime for Internet and mobile banking, and an impressive 98% reduction in downtime for the multicurrency bank account service.

The team responsible for FAB’s instant credit decision engine also reported it can now respond to requests from business stakeholders and find the root cause of performance issues more quickly. Instead of 120 milliseconds, responses now take as little as 70 milliseconds, a 42% improvement.

Building a proactive culture

In addition to optimizing performance, FAB’s focus today is on training employees to take full advantage of AppDynamics, create their own reports and dashboards, and uncover insights that will inspire them to go even further to perfect the customer experience.

Proactivity has become the new standard for the bank’s IT teams, which now monitor their systems and application code with unmatched vigor. AppDynamics allows them to detect gaps and opportunities for improvement more easily than ever, inspiring a cultural shift to accompany FAB's technology transformation. Whether it’s seeing and quickly resolving a five-second delay in the payment system or fixing a coding error, AppDynamics gives the teams the tools to address issues before they impact the business in major ways.

FAB’s mobile banking application, for example, notified the team of a potential service degradation, allowing the team to quickly address the issue before customers were impacted. AppDynamics also detects anomalies and proactively notifies teams, enabling them to identify the root cause quickly and fix potential issues within minutes.

“We’re changing the way we manage the bank’s performance with a commitment to improvement and empowerment for our teams,” says Emma Lewis. “With AppDynamics, we can incentivize our application owners and recognize them for what they truly are – trailblazers who keep our business connected to its customers.”

With total assets of over AED 1.1 Trillion (USD 312 Billion) as of September-end 2022, FAB is rated Aa3/AA-/AA- by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, respectively - the strongest combined ratings of any bank in the MENA region. The Bank has been ranked by Global Finance as the Safest Bank in the UAE and the Middle East since 2011, and #31 Safest Bank globally in 2022. The Banker’s Top 1000 World Banks 2021 rankings, measured by Tier 1 capital, ranked FAB as #1 in the UAE, #3 in the Middle East and #91 across the globe. FAB is also a regional sustainability leader (MSCI ESG rating of AA, ‘Leader’ category), and a constituent of MSCI ESG Leaders and FTSE4Good EM indices.