The most frequent reasons process reengineering projects are undertaken by banks, savings and loans and other financial services organizations are the reduction of expenses, poor customer satisfaction, poor quality products or services and competitive pressures resulting from broader, more flexible product and service lines available at competing organizations.

We recommend the goal of any process reengineering effort not driven by competitive pressures be the improvement of quality and service levels while reducing expense. Expense reduction alone as a goal will indirectly address quality and service improvements because the reduction of costs associated with rework and customer dissatisfaction are addressed. However, adding the improvement of quality and service levels as goals has a relatively small overall impact on the total cost of the project while significantly increasing the overall benefits to be derived. This occurs because improving quality reduces the rework associated with errors or customer dissatisfaction and variables typically not addressed in a cost reduction project receive consideration to include policies, procedures, work space design, equipment, training, etc.

Using the term process reengineering in banking or financial services is probably somewhat of a misnomer. It presumes a process was previously “engineered” at some point which may not be the case. With so many banking functions replete with government regulations and driven by purchased software that can significantly influence processes, true process reengineering can be extremely difficult.

Formal approaches to process design or process improvement involving only management and/or consulting assistance may best be referred to as Functional Design or Redesign. Functional Design or Redesign is best utilized when time does not permit a complete process reengineering to occur.

Process reengineering can encompass a single process, a group of related processes or the entire organization. In its simplest form process reengineering can be extremely complex because virtually no banking process has all of its variables contained within one functional area. Therefore, organization boundaries must be crossed and the assistance of other functional areas is required. If the process or processes involved in a reengineering effort are all self contained the project scope is probably too narrow.

 

Experience   CCI's Role   Project Phases

 

Functional Design/Redesign is best utilized when time is of the essence. CCI also has a great deal of Functional Design/Redesign experience in all of the areas referenced under the “Experience” heading below. The primary differences between Process Reengineering and Functional Design/Redesign are the absence of project teams, the Business Case step and an abbreviated Solution Definition. When reviewing Process Reengineering Project Phases in the box above, eliminating project teams and the Business Case along with an abbreviated Solution Definition provides our Functional Design/Redesign approach. We would be happy to discuss a Functional Design/Redesign project approach with you.