Make no mistake: The past 18 months have not been fun at financial firms. Companies have cut thousands of jobs and initiated drastic spending cuts across all business lines. And bonuses have been slashed, if not eliminated completely.

Indicators show that the economy seems to be improving slightly, but it is by no means chugging along at full steam. And while Goldman Sachs once again is showing strength, newly reported unemployment numbers are still alarmingly high (though not as high as in previous months).

Still, in preparation for a full recovery, some executives are moving quickly to improve the structure of their organizations during the current tough times. These forward-looking executives are taking advantage of the current environment to instill additional discipline in their organizations around how scarce development dollars are spent. At a recent Wipro-sponsored roundtable that was hosted by Wall Street & Technology, senior financial services technology executives met to discuss the rather nebulous topic of "IT transformation." They agreed that the industry is at a particular point in time -- perhaps an 18-month window -- where executives can implement IT development processes with the support of senior management.

Why now? For starters, anything that cuts costs, improves efficiency and/or increases productivity is likely to gain the attention (and approval) of senior management. There also is a lot more attention than ever before being paid to what is spent and what the return on that investment might be. Finally -- and this may be the most important factor for capital markets firms -- there isn't the typical "costs and process be damned" push from the front office for new functionality.

One roundtable participant noted that his firm views this window as an opening to clean up its operations and fix many of the mistakes that were made during the boom years, such as poorly designed systems. Another participant agreed, adding that his top managers are working to implement processes and discipline around how technology projects are selected and approved. If line-of-business managers don't take the time to implement stricter oversight now that they have the support of senior managers, it will never get done, he said.

In all, it's interesting to hear how some technologists view the current environment as a great opportunity, despite all of the challenges and hardships. Carpe diem.