Customer : Micro Finance
Scenario
- A growing microfinance firm, managing assets of over $600M, aiming to expand its current network of 150+ branches to 400 over the next 3-4 years while bringing down the branch opening timeframe from the 120 days to approx. 82 days.
Challenges
- Opening a new branch includes several disparate departments to set up operations from scratch - personnel, facilities, systems & infra and sales & marketing.
- Since the bulk of the operations during this phase are offline, visibility of progress is difficult especially at an aggregate level (regional, HQ).
- The processes tended to be tailored to local nuances, hence the need for standardization for scale.
- Lack of real-time visibility into factors affecting branch opening TAT.
Solution
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Integrated cross-functional SOPs for efficiency
- Playbooks incorporating tasks for all functions - Admin, Facilities, IT as well as Marketing were structured which allowed for an optimized approach.
- Handover of tasks between functions which had sequential dependencies were designated as milestones (to be tracked carefully).
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Automated invocation of SOPs
- Whenever a new code was created in the central system the SOP was automatically instantiated and the respective tasks were assigned to the cross functional team. This eliminated all wait time and guesswork.
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Alerts for handover milestones
- To promote visibility into inter-departmental handovers, alerts were set up to ensure that team members knew their work queue clearly.
Results
- 31% reduction in TAT within 6 months
- $43K savings per branch opening
