Our Financial Advice client faced a critical challenge with their pensions and investments research process. Inefficiencies in the process were significantly affecting customer experience and satisfaction, leading to a growing backlog and longer delivery times. These delays exceeded the agreed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and caused frustration among both employees and customers. Some customers even took their business elsewhere, highlighting the urgent need for a solution. 

By equipping teams with the right skills, encouraging a collaborative approach to problem-solving, and using a test and learn approach to potential solutions we helped our client achieve substantial improvements with minimal investment. 

Read on to see how these changes led to a 10% reduction in the staff hours required to complete the process, saving 3,000 hours annually. This equates to 1.5 full-time positions and allowed a team of around 15 people to handle increased business demands without additional staffing. 

Analysing the Process and Our Approach 

We  started by getting together with the teams armed with sticky notes and whiteboards, to map out the entire end-to-end process, which was heavily reliant on paper. By working closely with the team and understanding their daily tasks, we uncovered  a lot of duplication in data entry and manual transcription between systems, all of which introduced numerous opportunities for errors. In an effort to counteract these risks, multiple manual checks had been added, which ironically further increased inefficiencies. Front and centre throughout our discussions was  the knowledge and expertise of the people working with these processes, ensuring their insights were central to everything we did. After all, they know the process best and they stand to gain the most from the new ways of working. 

Identifying Inefficiencies 

To tackle these issues, we assembled an ‘improvement team’ with representatives from various stages of the process. The first thing we did was to upskill the team in Lean principles, helping them understand how to identify key pain points and ‘waste’ as well as encouraging a culture of constructive challenge. Recognising that criticism can be tough, we ensured everyone approached the analysis with an open mind, after all we know that everyone comes to work to do the best job they can. Using straightforward visual techniques, we highlighted the extent of inefficiencies including those caused by the extra checks. This really helped to bring the process to life and generated lots of constructive discussion on the root cause of the issues. By employing creative thinking techniques, we co-created several potential solutions and used different frameworks to help the team to prioritise which of them they wanted to test out first.  

Achieving Outcomes 

We recommended small-scale testing to evaluate the viability and impact of these potential solutions, using improvement measures to demonstrate which solutions delivered the best results and could be scaled up effectively.  We  used a proven, structured approach for small-scale testing and supported the ‘improvement team’ in validating potential solutions. The analysis of the improvement measures from these small-scale tests showed that ‘hands-on processing time could be reduced from about half a day for each case, to just 20 minutes, and the overall elapsed time could be cut from 8 weeks to 4 weeks. 

Risk Assessment and Mitigation 

One challenge was the perceived risk associated with the proposed solution. We needed to get the senior leadership team onside and reassure them that the proposed solution didn’t introduce new risk to their process.  We worked with our client to carry out a thorough risk review which showed that the perceived risks could be easily mitigated with existing technology. We  wrote up the results of the small-scale testing and risk assessment into a case for change, which we presented to the senior leadership team. Our case for change highlighted how simple the required changes were and how much improvement could be achieved without needing system changes or extra investment, providing assurance that all perceived risks could be easily mitigated. 

Implementation and Results 

The senior leadership team quickly approved the case for change, leading to the implementation of the proposed process updates. These changes resulted in a 10% reduction in staff resources needed to complete the process. This translated to 3,000 hours annually (or 1.5 full-time positions) for a team of about 15 people, supporting the growth of the business function without increasing staffing costs. 

Moreover, the overall process time was halved to around 21 working days. These improvements were realised by reducing the time spent chasing information from third parties, eliminating duplicate data entries and manual transcriptions, correcting errors, and removing multiple manual checkpoints. 

Key Takeaways 

The success of this project highlights the importance of working with the people who know the process inside out.  By tapping into their expertise we can thoroughly understand the issues and pinpoint potential solutions.  This approach enables a comprehensive process analysis, leveraging the team’s expertise and insights, and applying Lean principles to tackle inefficiencies. 

This case study illustrates how refining established processes in a regulated Financial Advice environment can significantly boost efficiency. By optimising costs and enhancing customer satisfaction, we supported business growth at reduced cost. The changes led to a 10% reduction in staff resources, saving 3,000 hours annually—equivalent to 1.5 full-time positions—allowing the team to expand without increasing staffing costs. Its safe to say, mission completed.