CASE 2: RETAIL AND BUSINESS BANK
Business Challenge
Management had recently completed a substantial restructuring of the retail and business banking operations bringing much of the activities formally undertaken in branches into central locations. Three primary business concerns emerged. Firstly the forecast reduction in operating costs had not materialised as forecast and secondly, in contrast to expectations, customer service retained the same level of variability as before. Finally, a major capital expenditure associated with the installation of new communications technology and CRM had been proposed and management was concerned to validate that the forecast improvements could be achieved.
What WDScott did to help
Conducted a rapid assessment of current operations - this involved identifying all the processes currently being executed in the centralised locations, defining their purpose, their activities and measures of the performance (including customer service, effectiveness and efficiency ). Every process was then assessed in terms of its performance and gaps identified. Each gap was then addressed and strategies for its elimination identified.
Every process was measured and costed.
Management processes were reviewed with particular attention focused on resources allocation and performance management. The key enabling process of including personnel, information and communication were also implemented.
All processes were then reviewed using two different scenarios: the first involved looking at processes, end to end. This enabled a baseline improved ‘as is’ to be established prior to assessing the impact of new technology.
Approach - the approach involved using a small full-time client team over a period of four weeks, under the supervision of a WDScott Partner.
Outcomes - and the key findings were that the performance deficiencies that had been identified prior to commencing the review could be overcome without technology investment, including a reduction in costs of approximately 25%. Further, the review showed that with the targeted introduction of new technology further improvements could be achieved - to approximately 40%.
Because of the deeper understanding that had been developed relating to individual process performance and the interdependencies within these processes, it was possible to identify the optimal sequence for the introduction of the new technology. It also meant that considerable early improvements could be made, thus improving the short-term customer experience and the productivity of both the centralised operational areas and the processes still being executed in the distributed branch environment.
In addition, it was identified that some of the key drivers of the performance gaps experienced in both operating centres and branches were a function of upstream processes - specifically those processes related to the development of offerings to segments and the nature of the communication, its timing and targeting. These processes were subsequently reviewed by the same internal team using the skills developed and the process architecture supplied by WDScott.