Millward Consulting LLC

Over the last few years, this Bank Holding Company experienced a significant increase in the demand for commercial loans from large and small borrowers. With this strong demand has come increased pressure on the approval and renewal processes, both in handling the increased volume of loan requests and doing so in a timely fashion. To maintain its position in the market, the Holding Company realized that these processes required significant change.

George organized a project team of managers from each of the subsidiary banks to identify the issues being encountered with the current process, to develop a new process design (with volume and accountability measures), and to build a series of recommendations for change. In particular the Team recommended a significant change in the approval process for smaller loans and lines, and in the addition of information technology support for this process.
 

The retirement plan services business unit (providing both defined benefit and defined contribution plans) was not generating the desired growth in assets or achieving its profitability goals. The analysis of the Retirement Plan Services Unit included review of the business strategy, the staff, the business processes and information technology support, and financial results. In addition, a sample of customers agreed to be interviewed regarding service quality.

 

The result was a set of recommendations to change management, to refocus marketing and sales efforts to address the banks’ core corporate customer base and to outsource the record keeping process.

Commercial lending origination process:  $15 billion commercial bank 

This bank had invested in a significant effort to provide sales force automation to its corporate lenders. However, that project did not address the work required to approve and book commercial loan proposals.

The Project Team mapped the current process of loan application documentation and approval, analyzed the supporting technology and assessed the processing staff. With the unit managers’ involvement, the team isolated those process steps which did not add value or provide any additional control. The resulting restructuring eliminated significant workload, resulting in the same staff becoming capable of processing 40% more loans without investment in new information systems.

 

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