Supporting a specialist lender in achieving their five year plan.

An effective model for future growth

A UK-based specialist lender was looking to treble its balance sheet while delivering sector-leading cost-to-income ratio as part of its five year plan.

Gobeyond Partners were asked to build an operating model to achieve the bank’s targets, with a focus on creating an operations function to support business growth.

The operating model had to be as effective and efficient as possible whilst catering to a wide range of customer requirements, following the bank’s successful acquisition of a number of diverse businesses.

Gobeyond Partners began by working closely with the CEO and senior management team, and spending time in the bank’s operations to learn what matters to the bank’s customers. A focus was kept on why the bank wins in its markets, and how to support continued successes in these areas.

Start with the customer

Through taking a customer-centric view by product type, the business stepped away from conventional ‘business unit’ approaches and articulated a dual operations strategy. This clearly distinguished the level of service and support needed for their low-complexity, high-volume business, and their high-complexity, specialist products.

The dual operations strategies helped lay out a framework and operating model design which could be used to assess current product portfolio and any future product launches or acquisitions. This helped allocate the right level of resource to achieve a high degree of scalability.

Another key challenge was to create the right support structure through the operations function. A detailed look at the existing COO structure led to recommendations on missing critical elements required for an effective operation. This covered areas such as planning and forecasting, small change, and supplier management.

Winning in your chosen markets

Our recommendations provided:

• Cumulative cost benefit of c. £34m over four years, which will meet the bank’s target cost-to-income ratio
• An operating model that is scalable to support the bank’s ambitious growth

Significantly reduced costs through:

• Centralised and streamlined operations activities using multi-skilling
• A Continuous Improvement (CI) programme with the outsourcer including a gain-share agreement

Improved customer experience through:

• New processes for existing customers
• Quicker responses through streamlined underwriting processes and the increased use of auto-decisions
• Risk-based arrears management

Greater staff engagement through:

• Well-defined processes with clear responsibilities
• Empowered local decision-making