Financial institutions are facing unprecedented challenges.  Changing strategic priorities, driving return on capital, diminishing margins in a highly competitive landscape, managing shareholder expectations and normalising profits are all placing a huge strain on all parts of the organisation. A huge question in this context is how to optimise the value of the branch network and employees to help the organisation to thrive in these changed times?

All quantitative research and experiential findings have consistently shown that the culture in the typical branch environment is focussed on customer service, processing transactions in a secure and efficient manner and establishing a high degree of trust with the customer based on personal contact.  Recent BAI (US) research specifically indicates that staff are 85% focused on being friendly and processing transactions quickly and accurately and only 14% focussed on taking time to understand a customer’s wider financial needs and only 1% focussed on trying to cross sell additional products and services.

Further analysis shows that Executives feel they have less visibility of day to day performance levels in branches due to a lack of detailed, timely reporting when compared to other parts of the organisation.  In the context of increasing compliance requirements and high staff turnover, there is a mounting challenge facing the retail division of financial institutions.