Business Challenge

In this case, 10 centres in Europe were reviewed. These centres served 4 banks with 4 segments in 4 geographies; each with distinct requirements. The questions included: Could the centres be rationalised and was there an economic rationale for doing so? What benefits might support the business case? What use could be made of existing technology? Was it beyond the capabilities of the organisation to manage the process and should it be out-sourced?

What WDScott did to help

Conduct initial analysis - Using the Process Architecture to template the best centre, the team found it could improve operation unit costs by over 40% and then progressively add technical enhancements to drive improvement up further. Improvement was achieved without significant technology investment and took 9 months. Much of the gain was achieved by:

• Process conformance around simple best practice,
• Establishing ‘perfect process standards and variance controls’,
• Process based costing and variance costing.

In parallel - WDScott used its ‘Two Way Commercial Service Level Agreement Method’ to transformation of the purpose of the centre from a service centre to a transparent, value-creating entity. This improvement, plus targeted rapid improvement in the other centres, cash-flowed the transition. Targeted outsourcing was then negotiated at or below the lower cost and new volume growth migrated into that new site. The exit conditions were designed and negotiated as carefully as the entry to ensure low future transition cost and risk from outsourcing.

Physical migration occurred progressively - down to two centres - one outsourced.

The team was mixed with up to 10 Client personnel and 5 WDScott personnel.

Outcomes - Key findings of the review included improved service levels and 35% increase in volume without large investment. In addition the Client team continued to gain further improvements in the following periods.