With the assistance of Mantec a better and more cost-effective platform was developed. Productivity increased and savings were realized.
Background
The company is a geographically diversified group, being the market leader in eight countries in central and northern Europe, where they have
700,000 customers and 4,000 employees.
In spite of good financial results during recent years, the group-management saw potential for improving both the productivity and the quality of work in their back-office operations, specifically in the operational core processes; customer service, order entry, service production and database management.
The overall objective of the project was to create a better and more cost-effective platform for the future development and competitiveness of the group. The company also wanted to develop an internal efficiency expert group to support their future internal productivity and quality-related development work.
Implementation
The process started with a pre-study conducted by Mantec. The potential for productivity improvements was identified and an implementation plan was developed in close cooperation with management. Operational and financial goals for the implementation programme equal to a productivity improvement of 20% were defined.
The implementation processes started simultaneously in all countries and local processes were supported by a Pan European benchmarking programme, which allowed comparison of performance between the back offices, and helped to identify and share best practices. Key measures implemented during the project were:
- a common company-wide management control system was defined and implemented. This included the tools and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for first line managers to effectively monitor their back-office resources;
- a common set of back office KPIs was defined and implemented making all parts of the organisation able to benchmark performance and identify best practices;
- transparency of the back-office activities was significantly increased, enabling effective and valuable cross organisational cooperation and knowledge sharing;
- a systematic process to review customer credits was implemented; and
- the first steps were taken towards establishing an internal productivity group (Efficiency Experts).
During the implementation process, Mantec were able to work closely with company management and personnel to establish a common platform for back offices managers and a mindset for continuous operational improvement.
Results
At the end of the ten-month implementation process, the operational improvements were evident. The major results of the project were:
- productivity improvement of 20% in the back-office areas;
- improvements/savings amounting to appr. SEK 4M which equate to a ROI of 400%; and
- a real behavioural change in the approach of managers to productivity and quality relating to back office issues
