Contents Preface From the Editor s Desk Evolving Trends in Core Banking Transformation (CBT) 01. Customer Expectations and Next Generation Banking 05 02. Survival Driving Core Banking Transformation (CBT) 13 03. How to Write a Winning Business Case for Core Banking Transformation (CBT) 21 04. Realizing Value from a Core Banking Transformation (CBT) Initiative 29 05. Web 2.0 Transformation Strategy for Banks 37 Challenges Faced in Core Banking Transformation (CBT) 06. Overcoming Organizational Change Management Challenges in a Core Banking Transformation (CBT) Program 45 07. Technology and System Integration Challenges of a Core Banking Transformation (CBT) 53 08. Core Banking Implementation Challenges for a Global Bank in a Multi-country Environment 59 Implementation of Core Banking Transformation (CBT) 09. Reliable Implementation Frameworks for Core Banking Transformation (CBT) Programs 67 10. Core Banking Transformation (CBT) Methodology for Implementation 75 11. Portfolio Analysis for Migrating Legacy Applications to a New Core Banking Platform 85 12. Products and Services Innovation-led Approach to Transformation 93 13. Core Banking Transformation (CBT) Bank in a Box (BiaB) Approach 99
CORE BANKING TRANSFORMATION Technology Insights for the Financial Services Industry 06 Overcoming Organizational Change Management Challenges in a Core Banking Transformation Program Marilyn Watkins Senior Principal Infosys Consulting Since banking is a highly competitive service industry where customers vote with their feet, managing change has always been critical to successful business transformations. An increase in bank failures in 2008 has further eroded customer loyalty while simultaneously creating increased pressure on banks to transform. In this paper, Infosys will highlight three key organizational change challenges together with tried and proven implementation strategies. It is only when staffs are fully prepared and ready to transform that they efficiently and effectively implement processes and systems as designed. This is particularly critical for customer-facing staff that directly impact customer satisfaction and defection. Edie Wiley Senior Principal Infosys Consulting
Introduction Since all organizational change involves people, banks engaging in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business transformations experience challenges that are similar to other industries as shown in Exhibit 1. They also encounter some challenges that are unique to the core banking industry. This paper highlights practical and proven strategies for overcoming these challenges. They are: 1. Driving rapid decisions and creating a sense of urgency in an industry that is understandably risk averse 2. Securing and mobilizing the right team at the outset of the project and 3. Managing a smooth transition for both employees and customers on day-one, week-one and beyond. Additionally, as banks expand their global footprint into emerging multi-cultural economies by opening new branches and scaling through implementation of standard processes and systems, they face a new set of challenges and constraints unforeseen in mature markets. This paper also includes successful strategies used in a recent implementation in Asia. Drive Rapid Decisions and Create a Sense of Urgency The entire banking industry is and needs to be risk averse. Banks live in a fish bowl under the scrutiny of the public eye and are challenged to continuously transform to meet ever-changing regulations, economics and emerging market demands. The recent banking crisis has placed increased scrutiny on the industry and its leadership. Banks tend to be slow to make decisions, preferring to explore all options and weigh risks and mitigation strategies about everything that could go wrong before making a final decision. In ERP business transformations, the key to success is to strike the right balance. Leadership faces a dilemma. They must continue to be risk conscious while at the same time being ready and willing to drive the rapid decisions needed to complete Projects Fail when People are not Ready Exhibit 1 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Resistance to Change Limitations of Existing Systems Lack of Executive Commitment Lack of Executive Champion Unrealistic Expectations Lack of Cross-Functional Team Inadequate Team and User skills IS staff and Users Not Involved Project charter Too Narrow Other issues People related issues 46
work that directly impacts the project burn rate and the business case ROI. Time is money in any industry implementing an ERP or other core technology platform, and especially so in banking. The speed at which leadership can mobilize the organization and the project team can complete the work will directly impact the business case ROI. Failure to create a sense of urgency means loss of business agility, increased project costs, and erosion of business benefits needed to retain and grow customer base and profitability. Infosys believes that a critical success factor from an organizational viewpoint in ERP business transformations is having a strong network of Sponsorship and Change Support across all roles and levels of the banking organization affected by the change (for example, Branch Executives, Tellers, Accountants, Customer Service Representatives). The network creates word-of-mouth sense of urgency and is actively involved with all activities that lead to implementation and go-live. This ensures that there is top-to-bottom and bottom-totop commitment to the effort. The ultimate evidence of commitment to change is the visible presence of a strong Sponsorship and Change Support Program. This occurs when Sponsors (usually Senior Executives), those with authority and power to legitimize the project, actively and visibly support the program. There must be twoway communication between the Sponsors and this network so that information is communicated in a timely fashion and trust is fostered amongst the team and those in the bank whose daily work lives will be impacted by the change. Success is dependent upon mobilizing ever-increasing numbers of stakeholders as shown in Exhibit 2. This change mobilization and acceptance process begins with Senior Executives who become visible project champions. One of Building Change Commitment Exhibit 2 Stakeholder Acceptance Process Senior Executives Awareness Engagement Commitment Ownership Governance Business, Customers Partners Awareness Engagement Commitment Ownership SME s Super Users and Supervisors Awareness Engagement Commitment Ownership Impacted groups Awareness Engagement Commitment Ownership Target Acceptance Area 47
the challenges in the banking industry is focus and change capacity as most executives are juggling competing business, regulatory compliance and project priorities while simultaneously driving innovation to cater to customer segments that are no longer predictably homogeneous. At a recent banking business transformation, there were four competing projects and the management was acclimating to a new CEO. The project to deploy Finacle, Infosys Core Banking Product in Asia was started at the same time as the development of a detailed business case. Needless to say, the business case was not well understood and it was difficult to get executive access and approval on communications because they did not have an integrated cross-project plan, let alone an integrated communications strategy and plan to reinforce the business case. Lastly, the project leaders were already in action and reticent to take the time to complete the Organizational Change Management (OCM) and communications planning work. The wrong message was sent to the staff that saw silo projects to consolidate the back office, start up new branches, rebrand recently acquired banks, and get all banks onto a common system versus each project s contribution to a strategic plan to grow the business by expanding the global footprint and standardizing processes and systems. Infosys applies five key strategies to build and maintain project sponsorship, change acceptance and drive decisions. First, it is critical that an executive business sponsor (change champion) is appointed for the business transformation project, empowered to make decisions and incented through alignment of personal performance incentives to manage project deadlines and deliver project outcomes. The sponsor is visible and communicates the business case to the staff so they can understand the big picture. Second, a business case together with an overall change strategy and plan including Building Banking Staff Change Commitment through Communications Aligned to Project Phases Exhibit 3 Deployment Plan Communications Strategy Awareness Engagement Commitment Ownership Phases Envisioning Design Build Test Deploy Stabilize Messaging Illustrative 120 Days Product Launch Each release will require a customized communication plan and strategy to ensure clear and consistent messaging 48
integrated communications strategy and plan must be created during project inception. This will drive banking staff engagement and messaging through to and after go-live as shown in Exhibit 3. Third, a rapid decision making process and rapid decision team with executive sponsorship and authority to make decisions are established at project initiation. Team roles and responsibilities, decision authority, and escalation criteria are shared publicly at project kick-off and communicated to all banking staff and management. Fourth, all plans for sub-projects, for example the OCM plan, are integrated with the overall project plan and to identify key events and deliverables that require decisions (example, approval of a project communication to banking staff). Fifth, to ensure visibility and timely management of all decisions at a Project Management Office (PMO) level including OCM, status is managed and reported along with scope, budget and schedule in weekly project status dashboard reporting. Secure and mobilize the right team at the outset of the project Another critical success factor in all business transformations is having the right people involved early at project inception. Commitment and ownership of changes comes only through participation so it is better to stack the deck in the beginning. The right people are those who are informal leaders and subject-matter-experts who have extensive personal networks and whose opinions are trusted by their peers and others throughout the organization. They are in the best position to gather information, validate process and job impacts, offer insights on change risks, role model the changes, advocate for the project and persuade others to change. They are also the best people to identify real problems early in the project life cycle. Managing Change in a Global Non-Homogeneous Market Exhibit 4 49
In banking business transformations, core banking project team members are most often assigned based on availability. A major handicap is self-created if the bank doesn t guarantee people jobs after the conclusion of the project. Lack of an executive sponsor champion, a safety net in the form of job security or any other upside to project participation is a deterrent to the right people volunteering or being selected by management to the core project team. This decision is short-sided and does not serve the long term interests of the bank. The real travesty is that it is the people who run the project who are in the best position to become leaders in the company post golive because they know the system and have developed capabilities and soft skills to excel in other roles. Specifically, they have developed skills to lead under pressure, facilitate, constructively resolve issues, deal with difficult people, and address timelines and unsolvable problems. We recommend two key strategies to secure and mobilize the right team. First, banks need to de-risk core project team participation through executive sponsor air cover and guaranteeing jobs after project golive. They also need to establish performance contracts with these same individuals to incent delivery against agreed-upon project goals and deadlines. Second, it is critical that the project team secure in-country Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to provide advice on culture and customer expectations. This is especially true in emerging economies (for example, Vietnam) which are culturally different than mature markets such as the United States. Banking staff (for example, Tellers, Marketing, and Operational staff) who were born in the country know what customers want from a bank. They are also more knowledgeable about tax, regulatory, language and currency requirements. Managing readiness and a smooth transition for employees and customers on day one, week one and beyond Since there is rarely a chance to make a second positive customer impression, dayone, week-one through -three and monthone staff preparations are critical to making a smooth employee and customer transition. There is a high probability for confusion as staffs transition from the old to new processes. The probability is even higher in emerging economies because the starting point is often from hand-written books to an automated technology platform. Failure to implement a comprehensive readiness plan results in unnecessary business risks. Banking staff may also act out their dissatisfaction in customer interactions if they are unprepared. This could result in customer dissatisfaction or defection; financial loss; and/or reduced productivity. Standard practice in ERP banking implementations is to develop training that includes new processes and solutions with emphasis on the most frequent customer transactions. Infosys takes this one step further. It is critical in banking that customerfacing staffs like Tellers have an opportunity to role-play situations that are most likely to occur within the first 30 days after go-live. The Infosys OCM team uses the business acceptance test scripts to identify the most frequent and common as well as the most complex scenarios (for example, deposit of a large check in the amount of $10K written on a foreign bank). One-time and interim processes also become the subject of role 50
plays. Key to day-one preparation is the staff not only learning the transactional details but simultaneously learning how to anticipate and manage the customer s reaction during the interaction. They learn how to diffuse and manage difficult customer situations which may arise as customers adjust to the new processes or have a first time bank experience. In the banking transformation project highlighted, three weeks were spent in role plays after work, providing staffs an opportunity to experience scenarios on a cumulative day-by-day basis starting with day one. Customer scenarios were defined and classified based on customer awareness measured from go-live on day one. Red alerts covering the most probable customer scenario role plays in the first two weeks (such as issuing new checks both through the system and physically) were based on the assumption that most customers would come into the bank within the first two weeks. Orange alerts (example, a customer brings in an old passbook and the teller must be able to cross-reference and locate the new passbook account number) described customer alerts most probable in the next two weeks. This helped the Tellers in particular develop muscle memory and get really comfortable with the new processes and systems before they had to use them in a real customer interaction. to attend training. In mature markets in the United States, there are more options for cross-training and rotating staff from branch to branch. In emerging economies in Asia, branded or co-branded banks are often actually separate legal entities and have unique country requirements (example, language and cultural norms like customers tolerance for wait times) so you can t as easily do cross-training or rotate staff between banks. Lastly in emerging economies like the project discussed, readiness preparations had to compensate for the fact that there was no secure postal system infrastructure to deliver new checks and passbooks to customers. In mature countries, new checks and passbooks are mailed a week prior to go-live, whereas in emerging countries, back office staff (from Accounting and Marketing) were trained as customer greeters and provided hands-on service. When a customer walked in, they would introduce themselves to the customer, give them a welcome kit, ask what services the customer needed and offer to provide personalized service. The greeter would take them to the right person and if the lines got too long, they would offer refreshments and snacks to make sure no customer ever felt abandoned. Another key to successful readiness is designing, scheduling and delivering training around existing work requirements, especially for customer-facing banking staff. Given the intense training requirements for Tellers together with limited backfill staff, training was conducted in the evenings and on Saturdays. Tellers were also paid overtime 51
Conclusion Increasingly as banks expand their geographic footprint and through globalization banking customers choose to work and live outside their own country, the customer demographics and expectations become increasingly non-homogenous. This increases the complexity of change already arising from tax, regulatory, language, currencies and language differences. It is ultimately the effectiveness of the customerfacing banking staff using the new ERP systems and processes that will positively impact the customer s experience during the change. Banking staff who understand the project from the outset and are well prepared in advance through an integrated change program are in the best position to deliver to the customers, and who in turn deliver business results to the bank. 52