BPO strategies for financial institutions

[#1]

Welcome to my Business Process Outsourcing blog, focused on the Insurance and Credit industries. I'm a product marketing manager in Enterprise Services. But I'm not here to sell you anything ... except on the concept of business transformation. In this blog, I want to explore current trends, hot-button issues and things that keep you up at night, such as where the economy is driving your business ... and HOW LONG will businesses allow the economy to drive them to oblivion? Business is about constant change and transformation. If you stand in the same place, you get the same (or declining) outcomes. Just ask Dr. Phil.

You can be an agent of change in your business. It doesn't come without risk but risk can be mitigated if you're sticking to a strategy. Think about going to a foreign country without the proper vaccinations. Playing short-stop without a faceguard. Going for a run after dark in black clothes. They all sound like dumb moves. There are precautions we take in everyday life. Yet we still manage to live pretty action-packed lifestyles ... successful lives.

It's the same in business. To be successful, we have to adapt to changes that are taking place out there, whether we like those changes or not.

Last year, financial institutions were talking about making transformations, according to a study by NelsonHall:  “Banks still have to adapt to changing levels of transaction activity and rebalance their operations accordingly, with banks expecting to face increasing levels of activity in servicing existing customers in 2010 alongside reduced new account activity and reduced activity in their lending businesses.”

--  excerpt from “BPO Opportunities in the Banking Sector 2010” NelsonHall

There are 4 issues that CXO's think need to be tackled -- each representing transformational change. According to the poll by NelsonHall, when asked, bankers ranked them as seen in this table: 

How important are these issues to banks?

Issue	High Importance
To reduce the cost base of existing shared service centers	97%
To rebalance activity between locations	57%
To migrate the cost base of existing centers to lower cost locations	50%
To improve the level of service provided by existing shared service centers	10%

 In 2011, you can bet that they're making these changes.  Are you planning to transform your business? If so, what's your strategy? Let's start a dialog!

[#2]

Knowing a lot of stuff about BPO is a good strategy, before anything else. I you don't know much about it, you'll end up hanging with regrets.