The situation
The Irish subsidiary of a foreign bank had to cut its costs by more than 30% within 12 months to stay open, and train its own improvement teams at the same time.
The bank went to tender for a provider to train its internal teams. We proposed a different approach: work alongside its people on the bank’s own processes, mentoring them rather than doing the work for them. Against significant competition, the bank chose it.
The approach
Our practitioners and a small internal team of three worked with the business units to find the core processes that used the most resources. Together they mapped the value streams and ran improvement workshops to remove the work that added no value.
The bank kept every decision about who stayed and who left. Its best people in each key process took part, because everyone knew what was at stake. ServiceForce, now CollabForce365, became the back office’s day-to-day operations management system, so the new processes were run and sustained by the bank’s own managers.
The measured result
- Costs down by more than the 30% required.
- Delivered in 10 months, ahead of the deadline and 15% under budget.
- The workforce went from 750 to 500 people while the business grew.
- The site became the back-office shared services centre for the wider business, and is now seen as the group’s centre of excellence for Lean operations in Europe. Its people advise other subsidiaries in the group.
What the client said
We were involved with Expertivity in a major change management programme to reduce costs by 30%. As part of the solution Expertivity embedded their ServiceForce operations management system to help manage capacity and deliver improved efficiencies. Put simply, they delivered the required results.
Celine Singleton, former COO, Rabobank