Financial Services Case Study

Estates Management at UK bank

Lack of management attention left staff feeling undervalued

Estates offices now processing additional 37% cases

The Estates Management business within the Wealth Management Division of one of the major UK banks

The Estates business had historically suffered from a lack of management attention and investment, staff consequently felt 'undervalued' by the rest of the Wealth Management division
The Estates business was highly profitable and there was an opportunity to grow substantially
Need to identify and release a minimum of 20% capacity from within existing resources to support the first phase of business growth
Need to introduce capacity management, resource planning and performance management to support ongoing growth (double the business within 2 years)
Business processes were not consistent across the four Estates offices
Significant 'skills-gap' with senior experienced Estates staff due for retirement

Carried out a series of introductory 'scoping' workshops with selected members of staff across all four Estates offices
Established project structure and improvement opportunity
Carried out a series of highly detailed process reviews and comparisons covering all Estates processes, across all locations, identified key process differences and critique of weaknesses
Immediate attention to high operational risk issues that had to date gone undetected
Formed a team including representatives from all locations to re-engineer an agreed set of more effective and efficient processes
Reviewed all proposed process changes with Group Risk and Compliance departments for agreement and sign-off
Active engagement of Group IT department to generate further systems based process enhancements (represents 7% additional capacity)
Implemented new processes across all locations
Developed and implemented a workload and capacity planning model to enable both 'what-if' scenario planning, also to manage performance on a regular structured basis
Carried out a series of Performance Management workshops to establish a genuine performance focused culture
Carried out skills audit across all offices and used as basis for structured training programmes, including the 'fast-tracking' of appropriate staff to address the 'skills-timebomb'
Carried out a series of culture change workshops to address the prevailing negative attitudes within the Estates offices and position the mind-sets for growth.

Estates offices now processing additional 37% cases
Established improved working relationships both within and between Estates offices, promoting a 'one-business' culture
Vastly simplified and common processes implemented across all offices
Business positioned to exploit the growth potential