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Practice Case A: Performance Planning
Background
A retail bank engaged Alta Bering to help improve profitability and volume target achievement rates in their branch network. Due to the volatility of the economic environment and regulatory intervention, target achievement at the branch level was highly unpredictable. The existing systems could not align trade area potential with available resources. The bank's products included credit cards, investment products, personal and small business credit products, and debit cards. The branches served a combination of consumer, small business and commercial clients.
Insight and Implementation
Alta Bering developed a bottom up approach to assigning and managing product sales targets for over 4,000 account officers. The method allowed the planning process to be repeated quarterly instead of annually and provided mathematically optimized values for the branch scorecard system.
Results
By adopting Alta Bering’s EPO™ approach, the client improved branch target achievement rates for its 800 branches. After one quarter, 80% of the branches met their targets within the 80-100 range next period. Based on bank asset size, the benefits amounted to 35 million to 100 million dollars in profitability annually. Other EPO™ implementations for optimizing branch service quality, facility and staff optimization are serviced by Alta Bering since 2004.
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Practice Case B: Branch Operations
Background
A Canadian retail bank engaged Alta Bering to help deliver more insight into Branch Operations efficiency. Service deficiencies in certain areas appeared to affect sales efforts and existing analytical methods could not deliver actionable advice. Branch operations served requests from branches and an investment brokerage subsidiary at three separate contact centers.
Insight and Implementation
The team determined the root-causes of service performance and its impact on certain products. A custom data warehouse was designed to facilitate insight and innovation. The client action request process was streamlined; a new analytical tool was put in place to optimize service parameters. The solution provided guidance to assist other analytical work.
Results
By adopting the new analytical approach, the client improved timely response by 7% to 12%, improving the results of cross-selling initiatives. Optimized policy guidance became available to branch operations and line of business executives.
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Practice Case C: Incentive Compensation
Background
Shortly after the after the banking crises in 2001 a major Turkish bank needed to focus the sales organization on profitable growth. The existing reward systems were ineffective in aligning performance with their strategic goals. Alta Bering was asked to implement a risk adjusted profitability and incentive compensation system that could be deployed at the customer portfolio level.
Insight and Implementation
An EVA-based profitability and reward system was designed and communicated throughout the branch network and incorporated into the branch reporting system using Alta Bering EPO™.
Results
The new system was instrumental in promoting a strong perception of partnership from an employee perspective. The bank was awarded Investors in People certification for their human resources practices in 2005. Team members were able to further develop the system and continue to manage effective compensation policies over the last ten years.
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Practice Case D: Distribution Channel Renewal
Background
A subsidiary of a large European insurance company found it necessary to review the direction of its distribution and agency strategy. Two key factors were excessive operational burden in certain lines, and a wish to prepare for acquisition by the parent company.
Insight and Implementation
To assess the current state of the agency network, Alta Bering installed a system that integrated policy-based operational information with production data. To balance sales against administrative operations, efficiency models were built to benchmark each agency and deliver actionable advice.
Results
The agency portfolio was restructured and company prepared for acquisition with guidance from the study.
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Practice Case A: Channel Optimization
Background
A mobile telecom company engaged Alta Bering to align dealer network performance with corporate profitability targets. Faced with commoditization of mobile services in a competitive market with 8 million subscribers, they needed to benchmark dealer channel members using subscriber lifetime value estimation.
Insight and Implementation
Alta Bering designed a system to integrate subscriber acquisition performance information with subscriber service utilization information. Dealer network performance was differentiated and the results used in determining optimal trade support and fee and commission structures.
Results
By adopting Alta Bering’s EPO™ approach, the client produced a plan to reduce distributor and dealer channel costs by 9% to 13% and direct marketing spend by 15%.
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Practice Case B: Branch Network Performance
Background
A grocery store chain engaged Alta Bering to set up a system for benchmarking store performance and delivering actionable advice for store operations and marketing efficiency.
Insight and Implementation
Alta Bering designed the information infrastructure and the models to support multiple internal benchmarking models for each store format. The store chain had expanded by 400 stores as a result of a series of mergers that had also resulted in overcapacity, based on trade-area demographics.
Results
By adopting Alta Bering’s EPO™ approach, the client not only supported optimal capex allocation but also translated trade area insights into effective assortment, marketing and in-store execution.
