The most valuable contributions CCI can make to your process reengineering project are providing:

• Prior experience with the process reengineering processes and phases
• A degree of objectivity internal participants may not possess
• Best practices, benchmarking and other valuable information from other banks and financial services organizations
• An independent perspective resulting from no involvement in internal politics
• Serve as a communications vehicle between customers, external sources, employees and executive management.

During the initial phase of the project CCI’s role must be defined by your representatives participating in the project. There are three possible roles CCI can play:

• Subject Matter Expert – experience with best practices, benchmarking and performance levels with similar processes and organizations.
• Team Member – provide objective and unbiased recommendations.
• Project Manager – provide the methodology and manage it.

The role CCI plays should be a function of the level of experience your organization has with process reengineering.

There is no single model for instituting change that works in every situation, organization or functional area. The process of planning the reengineering project provides the opportunity to define process reengineering from the client’s perspective. CCI will also insure you avoid the most common pitfalls experienced with process reengineering to include:

• Lack of focus on the planning phase. The planning phase is by far the most important project phase. Among other things, this phase defines objectives, scope of the project and the roles of the participants.
• Lack of focus on change management. Where 15 to 20 years ago the tendency was to not spend sufficient time on the planning phase, recent studies indicate change management is the most frequent project component receiving inadequate consideration. Recently, resistance to change within an organization has been cited five times more frequently than any other item as the primary obstacle to the successful completion of a process reengineering project.
• Lack of Executive Management participation and sponsorship. Projects driven by or actively supported by executive management are more likely to be completed at or above expectation levels and within the originally scheduled time period.