Back office or revenue generation channel? Re-evaluating the role your back office plays in your business. Financial Services

Transcription

1 Financial Services Back office or revenue generation channel? Re-evaluating the role your back office plays in your business

2 Out of sight, out of mind. That s the way many bank executives perceive the back office. Yet its operations deliver important after-sales support and service fulfilment, playing a critical role in meeting client expectations. Traditionally, the back office has existed as the catch-all for routine, manual and less desirable work processes that cannot or have not been replaced or automated by technology. Although the department is expected to keep pace with shifting business strategies, its inability to contribute to revenue generation makes it difficult to attract internal funding. This places the back office under exceptional pressure to reduce expenses, particularly in today s economic climate. At the same time, customers especially the Gen X- and Y-ers are demanding enhanced end-to-end customer service from their banks. To deliver instant access to information and the round-the-clock service that customers expect, the back and front offices must integrate more effectively a proposition that requires considerable investment. For companies, this paradox has created two duelling priorities. On the one hand, the back office is being urged to reduce costs by engaging in only limited continuous improvement initiatives. On the other hand, it is being challenged to meet rising customer expectations by embracing bold moves towards transformation. To resolve this dilemma, you need to assess the role that your back office plays within your organization and determine if it meets future business needs.

3 How is your back office meeting market changes? As you look to the future, is your back office focused on efficiency and service improvement or transformation? Consider the following trends as you build for the future Customer trust To maintain customer trust, and comply with regulatory mandates, banks must continuously maximize security and privacy while minimizing risk. One way to achieve this goal is to integrate operational risk management within existing processes, rather than maintaining it as a separate back office function. Demand for real-time service As customers continually demand real-time transactions, non-traditional banking competitors are rushing to respond. To boost speed, agility and flexibility, banks need new tools and knowledge workers. Improved technology As organizations face ongoing budget cuts, leaders must look to technology that can reduce costs and errors, increase scalability and elevate service levels. The days of back office spreadsheets and manual processes are over. Competition Traditional financial services companies now face a range of competitors who can take advantage of lower overheads to drive down product pricing. As a result, banks must grow via acquisition, spreading their brick-andmortar costs over a larger customer base. This results in greater geographical service complexity for the back office. Re-evaluating the role of your back office Given the pressures many banks now face, some organizations have begun to question the need for a back office at all. Emerging trends make it possible to reduce or even eliminate your back office. For instance, packaged core banking technology solutions can increase front office functionality, eliminating the need for many manual back office processes. In addition to enhancing productivity, this can help organizations reduce the risks typically associated with manual processing including data entry errors that can lead to financial misstatements, lower profitability and reputational damage. Similarly, with a single point of data entry across your customer, product and financial systems, you can shift the emphasis of work from manual processes to higher value activities, such as resolving service issues and client queries. Coupled with the move towards straight-through processing, this frees up employees to focus more on enhancing their customer service skills and product knowledge rather than building data entry and processing expertise. Finally, document and workflow management tools also play a role, enabling Operations to become a paperless environment. As traditional processing functions become commoditized, this trend is only set to accelerate. Taken together, these factors tend to eliminate geographic processing constraints, making it possible for organizations to increase flexibility and reduce costs by relying more on shared services, a dynamic workforce with various onshore/offshore delivery models.

4 Moving back office thinking forward With many enablers and technologies available to eliminate the need for back office processing, it becomes possible for organizations to reduce back office costs while still meeting spiraling customer service expectations. Here s how: Address tactical needs in the short term Implement tactical improvement initiatives to gain quick results and maximize possible quick win opportunities. Leverage process improvement to target and streamline manual processes, while identifying noncore processing activities as candidates for alternative service delivery. Manage the mid-term Make investments aggressively to streamline processes and integrate the front and back offices. Create a standardized Incident & Query Management function across operations to increase service visibility and provide access to data to drive informed management decisions. Target FTE-intensive, manual processes for straight-through processing. Act strategically for the long term Develop a five-year roadmap for your organization, addressing technology and talent management opportunities. Leverage technologies (document imaging, e-forms) to relieve the burden of manual, paper-based processes. Understand demographics and distribution of operations staff, and define roles/career paths, distinguishing between core capabilities, operations management and customer service. While it once seemed the back office would always play a key role in delivering customer service, other platforms now exist to improve overall client service levels, drive down costs, strengthen control and support future growth. For these reasons, and more, the time has come to re-examine the function of your back office and determine what role it should play within your organization in the years to come. Develop a five-year roadmap for your organization, addressing technology and talent management challenges.

5 Back office myth 1 The back office serves the branches and not the customer. The truth: Meeting the complex needs of today s banking customers requires end-to-end service delivery, including an integration of front and back office capabilities and knowledge. A high functioning back office increases speed of customer service, improves accuracy and facilitates issue resolution. 2 Back office processes do not reduce risk. The truth: Operational risk extends beyond IT activities and pure policy compliance, and involves all business activities within the bank. Leading banks are shifting their risk management philosophies from the back office to the customer interaction to include a broader context for managing control objectives with the highest risk exposures. This includes back office manual processes. 3 The cost of scaling back the back office is too large. The truth: The savings associated with outsourcing or upgrading your platforms can quickly outpace the costs. The time, effort and costs of supporting older or manual processes tend to drag down earnings, increase risk and prevent banks from being competitive. By outsourcing items processing, banks have realized costs savings in the range of 10% to 20% 1. 1 BPO in Banking: Outsourcing the Back Office, Julie Giera, Giga Information Group Inc., November

6 Contacts To find out how Deloitte can help you assess the role of the back office within your organization, please contact: Terry Stuart Heather Stockton Karen Irwin Mervyn Ramos Jessica Goldberg Stephen Cryer Soula Courlas Deloitte, one of Canada s leading professional services firms, provides audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services through more than 7,700 people in 58 offices. Deloitte operates in Québec as Samson Bélair/Deloitte & Touche s.e.n.c.r.l. Deloitte & Touche LLP, an Ontario Limited Liability Partnership, is the Canadian member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited. Deloitte refers to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a UK private company limited by guarantee, and its network of member firms, each of which is a legally separate and independent entity. Please see for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and its member firms. Deloitte & Touche LLP and affiliated entities G