Capital One streamlines risk management with Camunda's automation and decision modeling tool, Camunda Modeler

Capital One, a powerhouse in credit cards, auto loans, banking, and savings, embarked on a transformative journey in 2014 to modernize its risk management component. Spearheaded by seasoned product manager Sean Webb and application architect Senthilkumar Manokaran, the initiative aimed to centralize the inherently decentralized discipline of risk management. The adoption of Camunda Modeler was pivotal in orchestrating this shift, allowing the risk management team to share, create, and organize Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) process models and DMN decision tables with remarkable efficiency.

The challenge

As a financial leader serving over 100 million customers, Capital One’s strategic pivot toward technology was marked by becoming the first bank to migrate entirely to the cloud in 2016. This tech-forward identity was further reinforced as they exited all data centers by 2020. Capital One’s journey wasn’t just about upgrading technology; it entailed reshaping culture and practices within the organization.

The path to modernization was not devoid of challenges. The team learned the need for templates and standards for process models to avoid discrepancies and the need for extensive documentation to enable self-service for tenant teams. Data retention policies and a robust governance framework were also crucial in managing data accumulation.

Choosing Camunda

The selection of Camunda was a strategic move to meet Capital One’s rigorous demands for process and task management, decision management, and optimization capabilities. Camunda’s Modeler stood out for its ability to provide a collaboration tool for various teams within the organization, from assessors to auditors, fostering a shared responsibility model that allowed independent teams to build and deploy their processes.

The journey began with establishing core risk management activities, which expanded to centralizing processes and rules for quick, consistent decision-making. Camunda Modeler has significantly reduced Capital One’s time from model to implementation.

“It’s great that we can directly collaborate on the model itself, live, and adjust these things quickly. We’ve had testing sessions where we’re testing our product, and we find rules that aren’t functioning the way that we thought they would, then made the change in the DMN table so quickly that we had it fixed by the end of the testing session. Then we’re able to retest it, right there!”
– Sean Webb, Product Manager, Capital One.

Camunda aligns IT with business goals, providing visibility into tech-driven outcomes. Its unified modeling allows both business leaders and developers to collaboratively create, maintain, and optimize visual process flows, helping to mitigate siloed and isolated automation and expediting implementation.

The results

Capital One witnessed an immediate increase in speed to market and a reduction in infrastructure costs. Senthilkumar Manokaran noted,

“We noticed an instant increase in our speed to market as we started to use Camunda. And it reduces cost as well—infrastructure-wise. Now, it’s consolidated. It’s sitting in a serverless tech stack, which greatly saves our infrastructure maintenance costs.”

The adoption of Camunda by Capital One yielded several distinct benefits:

• Centralization of processes: By using Camunda Modeler, Capital One was able to centralize its risk management workflows and decision-making processes, which has helped create a unified language across teams and facilitated a collaborative environment where a central team could provide expertise, and tenant teams could independently build and deploy processes.
• Increased speed to market: The deployment of solutions was notably accelerated, as BPMN diagrams allowed for quick adjustments and collaboration among business, product, and tech teams.
• Reduction in infrastructure costs: Transitioning to Camunda and embracing serverless technology led to substantial savings in infrastructure maintenance costs.
• Decreased need for custom code: Camunda’s automation capabilities reduced the necessity for custom code development, streamlining processes further.
• Streamlined compliance: Camunda helped streamline compliance with non-functional requirements, addressing aspects like resiliency, scaling, and security.
• Enhanced communication: The use of BPMN diagrams as a one-model approach facilitated better communication between different stakeholders, reducing the risk of miscommunication and errors in translating requirements.
• Self-service enablement: Extensive documentation and the establishment of templates and standards allowed tenant teams to self-service, reducing dependencies on the central team.
• Effective data management: Data retention policies and governance frameworks were easily implemented to manage the accumulation of data effectively.

These benefits collectively contributed to a more agile, responsive, and efficient risk management function within Capital One.