Summary taken from a white paper written by Mr P Ezzard, eg solutions plc.

To request a copy of the full white paper please email racheloliver@eguk.co.uk

Research in the USA retail banking sector suggests that at the turn of the century, 70% of customer transactions were still undertaken by face-to-face contact in High Street branches.  By 2005 this had reduced to 42% and it is predicted in 2010 it will account for only 30% of service transactions (Corporate Executive Board 2006 – Lean Manufacturing for Financial Services).

These face-to-face transactions have been replaced by telephone; internet and ATM entered requests routed to large Contact and Processing Centres. This pattern is being repeated in service organisations across the world.

This change has been driven in part by the development of technology but also by organisations wanting to reduce costs and improve service through centralisation, outsourcing and off-shoring of service support and processing.

In this context further research in the USA suggests that in service industries 40% of operational costs are wasteful even when the work is undertaken in dedicated centres (Corporate Executive Board 2006 – Lean Manufacturing for Financial Services). Similar research in the UK suggests that “failure demand” in Contact and Processing Centres can account for anything from 20 to 60% of all customer transactions in financial services, often higher in local authorities and utilities (Seddon 2003 and 2008).  (Failure demands are customer contacts and subsequent processing activities caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer.)

It is therefore not surprising that service organisations are continuously looking at ways in which to improve performance.

Two key ways of doing this are through:

• Operational management improvements that result in the more effective utilisation of resources and processing systems available.  For example, implementation of operational intelligence and improved operations management practice.

• Initiatives aimed at achieving improvement through re-engineering processes, structures and cultures.  For example, “Lean” and “Six Sigma”.

The two approaches are separate but complementary.  The purpose of the full white paper is to provide an overview of several of the more common improvement methodologies and then to show how eg operational intelligence^® can be used alongside them to monitor success and maximise the benefits that can be achieved by organisations striving to meet customer and cost improvement requirements.

To request a copy email me or contribute to what improvement methodologies you are using please comment.