Case Study Overview Business Process Outsourcing – Equiniti Group

The Opportunity

Equiniti are a leading financial services outsourcing business owned by a private equity company. They were keen to focus on several of their operational sites in the UK (~1,400 FTE), responsible for administering pensions, payrolls, share registration and employee benefits schemes. These sites were performing at various levels due to a number of factors:

• not integrating processes from historic acquisitions
• multiple versions of legacy administration systems
• limited ability to measure staff productivity
• bottlenecks and manual processing creating delays
• poor understanding of customer requirements
• errors and lead times causing customer complaints

In order to demonstrate value to its investors, grow profit organically and prepare for future acquisitions, the management team were keen to improve performance. This had to be supported by improving margins and creating capacity using an operational transformation programme that would:

• create agile operations fit for future growth
• empower managers to improve staff productivity through increased efficiency and effectiveness (higher output, lower FTE requirements)
• reduce failure demand and streamline the flow of work and data through the business by sharing best practices from across the group
• close the loop on complaints and poor customer feedback more effectively to support long term contract retention with current customers
• consolidate regional sites into strategic centres by moving high volume, simple tasks to centres of excellence/offshore and outsource functional tasks
• simplify organisational structures/spans of control

The organisation was keen to adopt lean thinking, operations and service excellence in these sites as a means of dramatically improving their performance.

Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

The Solution:

A six-week end-to-end review of the operations was conducted, concluding that the current operational model was not fit for purpose due to:

• Process silos with specialised / deskilled staff
• Complex work flow and manual work arounds
• Lack of communication from sales during new and repeat contract negotiations
• Customers experiencing unpredictable and unreliable responses often not right first time
• Short-term tactical improvements focused on symptoms dampen the latest customer ‘fire’
• Poor management information on staff productivity and lack of process ownership

After presenting the findings the principles of lean design were used to completely rethink the operating model to be fit for the future. This involved:

• rethinking the site-level, departmental and functional layout of the operations based on runners, repeaters and rarities and identifying the simple, standard and complex work types
• documenting, standardising and migrating simple work into centres of excellence in the UK, increasing productivity and finally offshoring to a dedicated site in India.
• creating generalist multi-skilled teams to focus on a larger number of standard customer requests
• forming specialist teams dedicated to complex processing and high net worth customers who built relationships with key customer contacts

The target operating model was designed, piloted, reviewed and proven before rolling out across the various site locations.

Photo by Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash

The Outcome

The transformation enabled impressive outcomes which will ultimately enhance the outstanding service Equiniti provide to their customers:

• Simplified workflow through redesign of core and support processes
• Streamlined decision making processes
• Greater sharing of the ‘one best way’ amongst staff and focus on team-based problem solving
• More emphasis on skills tracking, development and multi-skilling to create flexible processes.
• Front line managers with the skills to coaching operational performance improvement
• Revised management information allowing greater insight to staff productivity and transparent discussions about individual performance.
• The embedding of a continuous improvement culture yielding >10% year-on-year benefits
• Job roles and responsibilities redefined to give clarity and greater accountability
• The creation of a customer-centric culture
• Enhanced customer feedback and reduced levels of complaints and failure demand
• Margin and profit improvement
• Increased sales from existing customers (through renewed contracts and additional ‘project’ work) and new clients taken on.
• Lead time improvements of >20%
• Lower telephony abandonment rates (<5%)
• Higher right-first-time scores (>95%)
• Greater engagement and support from operational staff enthused by having the chance to improve their own processes
• Lower sickness and attrition levels
• Updated operations capability and mind-set based on lean service principles through formal training, coaching and mentoring of managers to embed behavioural change.

Lean tools and techniques can be used as a key strategy to improve internal functions, create a productive and engaged workforce, and increase profits no matter what type of business you run. Interested in finding out more? Contact us at info@changewise.co.uk and let’s talk about how we can help.

ChangeWise believes employee engagement is the foundation for successful Change. Training and coaching your people to use simple continuous improvement techniques will enable your organisation to continuously adapt and stay ahead in a constantly changing and challenging environment.

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