Business process management in African banking

Wouldn`t it be great if banking were really as friendly, fast and simple as marketing campaigns make it look? Sadly, in the real world most of us find interactions with our banks extremely frustrating.

Are banks really in touch with our requirements, or are their processes focused on their own agendas and what they think we ought to want?

For anybody with some knowledge of the revolution in business process thinking over the past decade or so, it`s clear that the financial services industry is still very functionally oriented.

Have you tried applying for a new product recently? I tried to open a new account with a bank earlier this year but gave up after more than a month had gone by with no result. The consultant responsible for dealing with my application fell ill, and although the bank had a team responsible for handling new business, my application and supporting documentation could not be found.

If this bank had an effective case management solution in place, it would have been able to provide a quicker, more efficient service - and been able to optimise its own underlying process for opening a new account.

In a recent Business Process Management Congress held in South Africa, industry expert Dr Michael Hammer proposed a formula for measuring a company`s value-add to a customer. The two crucial variables are the value time (VT) within which customers expect to get what they want, and the elapsed time (ET) it actually takes. The smaller the gap between VT and ET - ideally it should be zero or even less than zero - the better you are doing. To achieve that, businesses need to focus on the customer`s end goal rather than their own processes.

For example, you will probably have noticed that you are asked to supply your ID and proof of address for FICA purposes every single time you apply for a new product at your bank. This shouldn`t be necessary - and it wouldn`t be, if banks linked FICA documentation to a central customer record or case folder. By taking this more customer-centric approach, banks would dramatically improve the customer experience and avoid frustration - for their employees as well as their clients.

According to Gartner, many banks in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region are in the process of renewing their core banking systems. So far this process is only in the planning stage for most African banks, but these are embracing emerging technologies. This opens doors for banks across Africa to dramatically improve customer service levels and become more compliant. They will need to put in place systems that streamline processes and deal with customers as individuals - in actions, not just in marketing promises.

From the moment it receives a new account application, a bank should create a case history for each customer. This may include receiving and processing an application, verification, requesting more information, assessment, making a decision and then closing the application -- a wide range of information to help it know its customer. Normally several different bank employees will work on different aspects of the application process - a dynamic case management solution can alert each employee to complete a task and access only the parts of a case they are working on.

This will not only result in a better experience for customers, it will also make the bank employees` jobs easier. Global 360`s case manager gives each user a comprehensive, clear view of every case, sets alerts and deadlines for tasks, offers real-time Web access to an entire case history and makes information exchange between departments better and faster.

All too often in banks across Africa one sees customers standing outside the banking hall in what seems like a mile-long queue. Banks that are considering upgrading their systems now have a unique opportunity to transform the banking experience for their customers, while at the same time improving their own efficiency.