Client Situation
Our client is one of the oldest and leading names in the UAE remittance market and a pioneer in the Financial Services industry, more specifically, the UAE money exchange business. As it continued to grow its operations and planed to expand into other Emirates & GCC countries, the exchange sought to improve its operating efficiency, establish uniform processes across regions and ensure its business structure could support growth initiatives.
Cedar’s Approach
Cedar was mandated to conduct a Business Process Improvement (BPI) exercise addressing key functional processes. The project encompassed a collectively exhaustive assessment of the 103 key business processes of the client to determine opportunities for operational efficiency improvement and enhanced customer service levels. The methodology followed by Cedar was as follows:
- Analysis covering key functional areas with main focus on Operations (including Planning, Marketing, Finance, HR and IT)
- Process Cataloguing and Prioritization
- Existing Process Mapping & Gap Identification
- Process Optimization & Recommendation
- Formulating an improved optimal business structure inculcating recommendations
Outcome
After a detailed analysis Cedar found a multitude of improvement areas, some of which were as follows:
- Processes were person-dependent, undocumented & not standardized across branches leading to varied customer service levels and increased operational risk
- Critical processes were missing or being inadequately performed (e.g. Annual business planning, Marketing Planning, HR Policy development , Training)
- Senior management spent excessive time on operational issues with little delegation of authority. Longer term strategic, branding, market positioning issues were not being adequately addressed
- There were duplication of resources across Abu Dhabi and Dubai causing unnecessary costs, operational complications, and poor customer service
- There was no centralized customer query touch point, causing customer frustration and reduced frontline staff efficiency (CSR’s spend 25% time on customer complaints)
- Operational processes were manual, with little IT enablement, despite introduction of new IT systems. Management Information System capabilities were underutilized
- Key HR functions (e.g. training, skills assessment, performance appraisals, career pathing etc.) were missing – causing higher turnover & low employee morale