Top Five BPM Challenges for Financial Services Clients

In 2013, our financial services clients have faced many new and different Business Process Management (BPM) challenges, revolving around a common set of topics. BPM is becoming ever more important as our customers face business challenges stemming from new and increasing regulation, greater industry consolidation and technology trends (mobile, cloud, big data). These changes are forcing organizations to not only change how they work but also to increase the efficiency and controls of their operations.

Questions our clients ask us most frequently—and our answers and strategies—follow:

1. 1. How do we respond to regulatory changes by new agencies—such as Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or new laws such as the Frank-Dodd Act—while maintaining revenue growth? Anyone who has undergone a regulatory audit can tell you that compliance is, above all, about business process management. A standard, well-controlled process yields not only increased productivity and efficiency, but significantly reduces risk exposure.
      In the past, BPM was deployed in financial services as part of an effort to improve efficiency and reduce expense. We’re now seeing an increased use of BPM to solve compliance burdens weighing down financial services organizations who need to comply with numerous regulatory agencies *(FDIC, CFPB, OCC, etc).
      We focus on helping financial services organizations embed compliance and operational controls into their processes (versus a distinct activity). As a result, clients not only strengthen their compliance posture, but improve standardization of critical processes. And this makes it easier to optimize processes and deliver value to customers by delivering quality, faster response times and more integrated services.
   2. What key activities are needed to ensure we gain operational efficiencies during an acquisition?Applying a customer-experienced focus to process analysis and project management disciplines helps our clients smoothly navigate through mergers, acquisitions and divestitures–ensuring a seamless client servicing transition that’s apparent to the customer. Process analysis activities typically include end-to-end visioning and design to address process controls, integration points, redundancies, and standardization needs.
   3. How do we move beyond efficiency to effectiveness and innovation?
      
      In the highly-competitive financial industry, companies are continually looking for innovative ways to improve efficiencies so they can get new products and services to market faster. Business process automation is gaining in popularity and enterprises are banking on increased internal efficiencies through BPMS tools, and ultimately freeing up resources for innovative customer engagement strategies.
   4. How can we integrate real-time data into operational processes, providing better access to information to move the business forward?
      
      One of the most significant emerging trends in BPM is the use of real-time data analytics within business processes themselves to optimize process performance and, more importantly, improve business outcomes.
      The rise of intelligent Business Process Management Software (or Service), referred to as iBPMS, has been critical to bridge the gap between process and data. As big data gains prominence in many industries, the potential for ROI generation through iBPMS increases, adding value to the technology’s already prolific potential. Often, business processes are executed without access to the right data because challenges occur when trying to integrate big masses of data from many different sources to support a business process. Additionally, bad data quality due to duplication, incompleteness and inconsistency prevents workers from making good decisions. iBPMS leverages existing enterprise systems to empower knowledge workers with the information they need by providing integrated views and reports across information systems and applications.
   5. How do I adapt business operations to changing technologies while ensuring customer growth, engagement, and retention?
      
      Top-performing financial services organizations are leveraging new technologies to improve customer engagement, retention, and confidence. These companies are learning early on that the success of technology initiatives hinges on a solid business process management foundation. With a clear understanding of current and future states, organizations can better adapt business operations working off a common process infrastructure.

We anticipate similar questions and challenges throughout the remainder of 2013 and into 2014, with continued focus on improving processes, leveraging technology to accelerate growth and change management approaches (all based on lessons learned in 2013).

To learn more about our BPM client work, see our client case studies.