Lean Rapid Process Improvement | Kaizen in Global Financial Services

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2012 High Performance Virtual Summit

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New White Paper

Enterprise Risk Management: Proof or Promise?

There is overwhelming consensus among financial services executives that the current risk environment has become significantly more complex, dynamic, and difficult to navigate. Some new mandates are expensive and cut into margins and profitability, so there is a real motivation to not only comply but to more effectively manage the response and cost.

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New Article

AMN Healthcare: Providers Re-engineering Healthcare for Greater Efficiency

With healthcare reimbursement becoming tighter and patients expecting more from their providers, hospitals and other health systems are seeking ways to change processes and become more efficient.

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Streamlining the Selection, Approval and Funding Process of a Technology Project

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Client: A global financial services firm with operations in more than 50 countries
Industry: Financial Services
Service: Lean rapid process improvement (Kaizen), Implementation Services

Challenge:

The heavily siloed firm was struggling to obtain timely funding of major technology initiatives across its various lines of business
Delays in approvals hampered the delivery of projects

Solutions:

Detailed analysis of current best practices among 13 lines of business
Design one future state process to meet the requirements of 13 lines of business
Execute the transformation and implementation

Results:

13 different processes were replaced by a single, standard funding approval process
Redundant approvals from executive management were eliminated
A single technology solution was developed and implemented

One of the major issues facing the client was their information technology organizations were dispersed throughout the various lines of business. Competition for a finite pool of IT resources was fierce and each organization had its own process to gain funding approval. The approval process for large IT projects was unclear and inefficient – and the process path and requirements varied from group to group. The process had to be fixed and the firm made it a top priority.

The opportunity seemed obvious – create a standard process that defines the critical common touch points across the enterprise. The benefits of cost reduction, internal customer satisfaction improvement, better business decisions, and resource alignment were equally apparent. Buy-in from the multiple stakeholders would be critical, and the new process would need to satisfy competing business priorities. The firm commissioned a collaborative Lean Six Sigma initiative as the approach that would achieve fast, dramatic improvement.

Phase I consisted of understanding how each of the 13 existing processes worked. From the current state analysis, a core set of process data requirements were defined to compare each of the processes. The team did not want to lose known “best practices” and needed to understand how each process performed in order to baseline the improvement opportunity.

Phase II required meeting individually with each stakeholder group to conduct process mapping sessions. Each process map clearly detailed the functions of the process steps, including the inputs and outputs of each step, as well as the various forms, spreadsheets, and other tools used to facilitate funding approval. Thirteen such maps were captured and synthesized. Many significant differences existed.

Phase III consisted of an improvement project to review the current state processes, design the future state solution, and define the implementation and roll out of the solution. A team of finance, technology and business representatives were invited from across the firm. The team was empowered to make decisions relative to the process, policy and technology necessary to improve IT project funding approval. Critical to the success of the project were daily leader meetings with management to review the team’s progress toward projected goals.

The team evaluated value-added and non value-added activities, and used practices such as brainstorming and multi-voting to isolate the critical issues and key themes that needed to be addressed. The team then assembled the newly defined process components into an end-to-end future state funding approval process. The old process, previously requiring six distinct forms, now had a single, newly designed approval form. Lastly, the team built the implementation plan necessary to deploy the process across the firm by year-end.

The firm’s newly designed funding approval process was indeed implemented by year-end as planned. With all key areas and resources engaged at the project launch, the new process immediately enabled improved delivery of on-time, on-budget projects.