LoBue: Real Resources: Human Resources: Consumer Financial Services

SUCCESS STORY: CONSUMER FINANCIAL SERVICES

CLIENT:	National Commercial Bank
DIVISION:	Consumer Financial Services
CONTACT:	Division Executive Vice President
MAJOR FUNCTIONS:	Retail Sales (Telemarketing & Branch Origination), Wholesale Acquisition, Underwriting, Loan Processing, Servicing, Collections, Secondary Marketing, Credit & Risk Management, Human Resources, Federal & State Compliance, Technology Services, Marketing, Quality Assurance

SITUATION
The division was represented by a collection of independent businesses experiencing significant growth and lacking a common infrastructure to effectively manage this growth. The division and its five business units reported year-end assets over $6 billion and pre-tax earnings over $160 million.

The organization was facing operational deficiencies, an inconsistent management process, functional redundancies and compliance issues. The division executive management team established a list of (23) critical success factors supporting five strategic initiatives; Expansion, Technology, Human Capital, Infrastructure and Product Development.

As a result, division executive management requested that LoBue Associates, Inc. perform a complete business process rationalization to identify and report organization and process improvement opportunities.

LOBUE RECOMMENDATIONS

Consolidate staff support functions (Finance, HR, QA, Risk Management, Training, etc.) across all lines-of-business.
Develop and install an enhanced Management Process to enable the business to measure and evaluate its performance and progress towards organizational goals.
Purify the retail distribution channel of operational and administration functions: centralize loan processing, eliminate payment processing and implement third party closings.
Eliminate redundant quality reviews and post-closing functions performed in the Servicing department through the implementation of centralized loan processing and insured closings.

REAL RESULTS
These recommendations were incorporated into the implementation of a new national consumer lending organization.

The loan processing function was centralized from the retail branch network to an operation center. This effort resulted in a 100% productivity improvement and a savings of $19,000,000 in labor costs. The retail branches were converted to sales-focused centers where a disciplined sales management process, from lead generation through closing, was installed. The result was an increase in average originations per loan officer of 65%.