Scenario 1: I have a check to deposit. I go to the bank, ask a teller to deposit the check in my account. He takes my check and makes few entries in his register. In the evening he will transmit the details of the check to some centralized location which will verify that person who has signed the check has sufficient funds his account or not and also verify the signature. If everything is fine, the amount will be transferred to my account. This whole process may take a couple of days.
Scenario 2: I have a check to deposit. I go to the bank, ask a teller to deposit the check in my account. He takes my check and verifies the check details an online system which he has access. If everything is fine (availability of funds and signature match), the fund will be transferred to my account in a couple of minutes.
Scenario 3: I have a check to deposit. I open bank's app on my smartphone, take the picture of the check, make few entries and in few minutes funds are in my account.
The above three paragraphs show how banking has evolved. from the consumer's point of view. In the first scenario, the system was manual and the consumer has to make a trip to bank and fund transfer used to take a couple of days. In the second scenario, the system is the same consumer has to make a trip to the bank but teller has access to automation which stripped away the delay. In the last scenario, the consumer has access to a self-service portal which has removed the intermediary (bank teller) and makes consumer responsible.
Let's come to the IT. Earlier we were working in the era of brick and mortar era of the bank where the developers' have to visit Operations and request for deployment. With automation, Operations job becomes easier (assuming complexity of the infrastructure remain same) and faster, still developers need the intermediary (operations team). Now we are entering the new era where the distinction between Dev and Ops is blurring because of self-service and increasing automation not only at App level but at Infrastructure level as well.
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