Intelligent Operational Management Pays off At Co-operative Financial Services Payments Services

eg solutions delivered exactly what it promised following a project with Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) - a cost benefit saving of over 20%. In addition to helping Payment Services achieve this, eg solutions also improved its capability to manage the end-to-end customer experience and maintain high customer service levels.

One of the UK’s leading financial services providers

Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) is one of the UK’s major financial services organisations, comprising of some of the best-known names in the market - the Co-operative Bank, Co-operative Insurance Services (CIS) and smile.

eg solutions had recently undertaken a successful implementation at CIS which led the company to award eg solutions a major project within its Payment Services division. At the time the Payment Services division employed 240 staff, primarily undertaking processing, reconciliation and administration of customer transactions.

Payment Services was selected as the pilot for an eventual implementation throughout the Bank because it provided the greatest opportunity for eg solutions to demonstrate its capability to support a number of diverse business processes, spread over a large geographical area.

Payment Services itself is split across a number of different locations including offices in the North East, North West and South East England.  Each of the sites have differentiated staffing profiles, some have higher staff turnover and therefore tended to have lower skills levels, whilst others have little or no churn which also tended to have personnel with higher skills and experience levels.

The Payments Services division used disparate processes, ranging in complexity and manual involvement. This, together with a range of short cycle tasks, such as handling bank clearing items, through to complex, long cycle transactions, e.g. bank securities, added to the overall process complexity.

Operational Intelligence

eg solutions approached the implementation by initially recommending a staged approach.

Prior to implementing any software or business methodology eg solutions undertook a detailed analysis of existing business processes to provide a fact-based measurement of staffing, skills, training and service levels to understand current performance and the potential to improve.

Critical to the eg solutions methodology is to adopt a partnership approach to develop an Operating Model and agree the way forward for its clients - in this case Payment Services - to achieve the improvement potential as outlined in the original objectives.

It was at this stage that eg solutions implemented the eg principles of operational management® and eg operational intelligence® software suite.

eg solutions is the leading provider of Operations Management solutions that provide rapid performance improvements in customer service delivery. 

Operations Management improvements are achieved through the deployment of eg’s two core products/services:
•   the eg operational intelligence® software suite and
•   eg operational management® training and development for Managers and Team Leaders based on tried, tested and proven methodologies taken from industry.

The second stage was important: through close involvement, discussion of results and taking feedback onboard directly, eg solutions was able to ensure that staff at all levels had an opportunity to be involved in the development of the Operating Model and could see for themselves the extent and nature of the improvement potential possible.

Sign-off of this phase then enabled the next stage to commence: the implementation of the eg operational intelligence® software suite – eg’s work, resource and performance reporting tool which enables Managers and Team Leaders to improve end-to-end customer service, quality and ultimately productivity.

eg’s software package eg operational intelligence® (including eg work manager®) has been developed and refined over the last 15 years and provides comprehensive, real-time work, resource and performance management information. It enables clients to gather information about the key factors affecting performance, and, using eg’s operational management techniques, identify appropriate decisions and implement actions that improve efficiency customer service and reduce cost.

The two solutions combined have delivered substantial productivity improvements at Payments Services and enhanced its capability to manage the end-to-end customer experience and maintain high customer service levels.

Elizabeth Gooch, CEO, eg solutions, stated: “eg guaranteed that efficiency and profitability would be significantly enhanced and that is exactly what has been achieved. Through our partnership approach, eg involved staff and helped them understand how they could shape the department’s future success. Due to the hard work of everyone involved its efficiency has improved considerably whilst still maintaining its high standards of customer service delivery.”

Business benefits

By implementing eg’s software, Payment Services was able to use a consistent methodology right across all operational areas to:

•       Ensure staff had the right competencies to work on the right jobs at the right time

•       Identify customer expectations and requirements and monitor actual performance

•       Identify improvement priorities based on the gaps between anticipated and actual performance

The training, development and complete skills transfer with Managers and Team Leaders in the eg principles of operational management® was used to develop a consistent and effective process for managing. The result was the actual achievement of the potential identified in the process analysis phase of this pilot.

With the help of eg solutions, Payment Services was able to achieve exactly what had been predicted at the outset of the project. This was a great motivator for staff who experienced a real sense of achievement.

On completion of this successful pilot, eg solutions was requested to assist CFS to further develop consistent management practices, with supporting business benefits across Customer Services, Personal and Business Banking, Mortgage Services and the Debt Management teams.