Internal
Case Study
Requirements
You are kindly requested to analyze and study the below case study related to the Corporate Account Amendment, by
preparing a couple of slides illustrating your understanding from the case study and how are we going to improve the process.
Abstract
As a practice of process improvement which focus on the maximum operational efficiency through waste elimination and
continuous improvement, lean management has increasingly been perceived as an effective methodology that contributes
companies to improve their businesses performances.
In banking such as in other industries the main business focus is to achieve profitable operations and meet costumers’
expectations while providing efficient, reliable and affordable services.
Multiple international banks such as BNP Paribas and Bank of America have applied lean concepts and tools to their operations.
A literature review highlighted the following benefits from these type of lean implementations
 Lead time reductions;
 Increased quality of services;
 Increased productivity;
 Cost reduction;
 Gain of competitive advantage;
 Increased customer satisfaction.
Case Study
The case study in this document is a practical project to simplify and improve the operational performance of a front
office banking process. The case company is one of the largest Portuguese banks, which has more than 2 million
customers. While offering a wide range of banking and financial products and services the bank has not only
consolidated its position in Portugal but it’s also a reference institution in other countries. For many years the bank
remained profitable and revealed a positive growth trend in markets in which it operates. However, the outbreak of the
global financial crisis raised new adversities such as the loss of customers’ confidence and the reduction of profit
margins. As a result, the bank had to be recapitalized and in counterpart was coerced in a strict restructuring plan.
More than ever, the institution was pressed to revise its operating model in order to streamline its processes and
achieve an effective cost reduction without compromising its competitive advantage. Against this scenario lean was
perceived as one of the management strategies able to help the bank prosper
The steps that the project team took prior the lean implementation were the following:
1. Processes prioritization;
2. Selection of staff of change (bank’s employees);
3. Preliminary process analysis.
After these steps there was an identification of improvement opportunities and the proposal of suitable solutions. Lastly
there was a final selection of the solutions to implement, handled by the top management. Throughout the whole
approach there was an active participation of the bank’s employees from different departments and the support of the
top management.
Targeting to improve a process that would provide a positive and significant impact on the bank, the processes
prioritization was based on the results from a survey that inquired front office employees on the most critical processes.
These employees had to choose up to three processes that in their perspective had greater opportunities for further
enhancements. As shown in figure 1, two processes clearly stood out, the processes for Corporate account’s opening
and Corporate Account amendment /maintenance. Nonetheless, in the present study the focus will remain on the
Corporate Account Amendment only.
% of Selection
Corporate Account Amendment 70%
Corporate Account Opening 65%
Others 25%
Mortgage 21%
Corporate Lending 20%
Credit Card 14%
Personal Loan 10%
Insurance 10%
0 %
1 0 %
2 0 %
3 0 %
4 0 %
5 0 %
6 0 %
7 0 %
8 0 %
Figure 1
Corporate account amendment is one of the banking operations that further fosters the establishment of a long term
bank-customer relationship. It encompasses any changes that a customer may wish or is obliged to perform in order to
manage their bank account to their will. The process requires coordination between employees from front and back
office and it’s usually performed manually through email application. Its operations mainly include customer’s
documents collection, scan and indexation, printing of documents such as terms and conditions and forms’ filling. To
minimize operational risk and ensure the validity of operations there are multiple points of validation and approval
throughout the process
While analyzing the process the project team identified that it had a return rate of 28%. As presented in figure 2, a
further investigation revealed that the main causes were the entry of incomplete or incorrect data and errors detected
in document scanning or indexing.
Figure 2 - Causes for account maintenance process return
For an accurate diagnosis of the current state of the process the project team also analyzed in more detail the survey
conducted and performed a value stream mapping involving directly the employees. Besides supporting the selection
of process with greater room for improvement from employees’ perspective, the survey conducted also enabled the
identification of its main inefficiency factors, since each employee was also asked to justify their selection. The
arguments raised were analyzed in detail and classified in five main categories. Figure 3 illustrates the percentage
each factor was mentioned of all responses.
Figure 3
Corporate Account Amendment or Maintenance for Customer Data such as KYC changes value stream map
(Process Map ) in figure 4 as mentioned below