Banking & Insurance

Issue

A North American banking and insurance industry leader sought to improve the integration of its auto loan and insurance businesses and prepare for expected growth. Specifically, the organization enlisted The Highland Group to define how much additional business this new channel represented, how and when to roll out the new software capability, and how to integrate the new volume into already capacity constrained work centers.

Highland Approach

The Highland Group created visual maps to understand the current state of the operation and to define leadership’s vision of the future state, fully integrated business. Developed models to simulate ranges of growth and the staffing needed to meet increased capacity. Redesigned workflows to optimize processing center performance and service levels.

Actions Taken

• Developed a Demand Forecast Model that simulates potential customer and sales agent behaviors to forecast the volume of business from this new integration channel. The forecast volumes are derived from internal data and “demand factors” developed with a cross-section of sales agents, field staff, and corporate analysts.
• Implemented an Operations Staffing Model to determine the required staff levels for all functions involved in processing auto loan applications. The Operations Staffing Model is integrated with the Demand Forecast Model to reflect the probable ranges/impacts of the rollout.
• Developed an Auto Loan Processing Operations Vision utilizing the results of the Demand Forecast and Operations Staffing Models as the baseline for the “future state”. This Vision defines the future state work flows, relationships between processing centers, and required service levels.
• Coordinated plans for hiring, recruiting and training across the impacted work centers.
• Designed a pilot and roll-out plan to manage the pace of the implementation to maintain alignment between external demand (customer auto loan applications) and Operations’ processing capacity (trained staff). The roll out included the processes and feedback mechanisms to refine the Demand Forecast and Staffing Models on an ongoing basis.