At a time when banks are struggling to rein in their cost-to-income ratios, JSE Securities Exchange-listed Global Technology has developed one aspect of the solution in its package-enabled re-engineering business, delivered through its Enterprise Business Solutions (EBS) business unit.
Jacques Gilbert, CEO of Global Technology`s 100-strong EBS, says the unit has broadened its scope in direct response to market developments over the last decade among financial service providers (FSPs).
"Gartner has observed that despite billions spent on IT systems between 1995 and 2000, headcount as measured per employee has at best increased marginally and at worst been static," notes Gilbert. "Gartner`s conclusion is that there does not seem to a correlation between IT spend and the profitability of FSPs."
The reasons for this are not hard to identify, adds Gilbert:
* The mere automation of dated processes does not in itself guarantee increased productivity.
* Continuing to apply expensive computer systems to outdated processes means that the processes themselves will inhibit the potential for improvement.
* Simply automating an organisation without fundamental changes in internal processes and people leads to FSPs being unable to adapt to provide the value their customers deserve and demand.
EBS`s response to the challenge facing FSPs is package-enabled business process re-engineering.
"Many FSPs today need sweeping re-engineering," adds Gilbert. "Today`s processes and workflows - the backbone of business - have been designed around the limitations of legacy systems such as batch processing pools, manual risk assessment, paper-based transactions, paper-based reporting and diaries, manual and paper-based verification and authorisation and teller treasury registers."
One consequence of this, Gilbert points out, is that the process around an overdrawn account involves nine manual steps, each costly and prone to error and redundancy of effort.
EBS`s solution is to align banks` business processes with Globus, the integrated banking solution developed by Swiss Stock Exchange-listed Temenos, in which Global Technology has a 15% stake.
"Globus-enabled re-engineering is executed in line with best practices and customised for each bank," Gilbert stresses. "Because all events and transactions occur automatically, in real-time and in an integrated fashion, staff are freed up from costly manual interventions."
The result, in the case of the overdrawn account, is reduction from nine manual steps to four.
In line with this, EBS offers knowledge management services, which is committed to helping end-users to work within the understanding of the bigger picture, and participate in their company`s success.
The mechanism EBS uses is the Knowledge-Enabling Portal, which ensures ongoing skills and knowledge transfer to appropriate staff.
"The portal can be customised to each employee`s specific role," says Gilbert, "an approach which ensures they learn either just-in-time or with full on-the-job assistance."
Along with this is EBS`s activity-based costing and management, in terms of which consultants work with clients to assign costs and revenue streams to activities and processes defined during re-engineering. This identifies opportunities to create value by increasing revenue, decreasing cost or reducing working capital.
"Our overall approach is designed to deliver dramatic business improvement, which drops straight to the bottom line," concludes Gilbert.
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