Banks have reclaimed over forty million hours of valuable working capacity that would otherwise have been lost or not used effectively, new figures from the specialist operations performance management firm ActiveOps have revealed. In its ten years working with a growing number of banks around the world, this has resulted in cost savings of over £500m through improved operations productivity while allowing banks to improve customer experience.

The analysis was calculated from ActiveOps’ 21 clients in the international banking industry and showed that, since deployment, the specialist has collectively enabled banks to get back over five million ‘lost’ or under-utilised hours through improved operations performance management disciplines.

The ActiveOps approach combines best-practice operations performance management with the company’s Workware planning and control software platform. Now used to manage more than 30,000 employees in the banking sector alone, ActiveOps’ offerings continue to attract the attention of leading organisations in the banking, insurance, BPO, utilities and public sectors. Most recently, this has included a new deal with Bank of Ireland, one of the largest banks in the country.

“One of the biggest challenges many global banks face is delivering economies of scale,” said ActiveOps Chairman John O’Connell. “The Active Operations Management method improves effectiveness across the management process, providing a clear understanding of capacity and performance and enabling continuous improvement. In the banking sector, the analysis confirms this approach is delivering a significant return on investment, especially when it comes to the hard-to-reach, complex, middle/back office. As a result, Workware is fast being recognised as the leading platform of its type.”

ActiveOps’ highly-scalable Workware cloud application suite supports a proven, people‐centric methodology, providing previously unattainable levels of control over operations performance. Designed to provide a global structure for managing work across a wide variety of business areas, it has been adopted by banks spanning a number of continents including Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America, with language support in French, Spanish, Arabic and German.

“Managing operations in different countries, cultures and time zones is a real challenge for international organisations, which is why building sensible uniformity in our operational practices is a huge advantage,” says Nigel Adams, General Manager, Global Head of Payments & Cash Operations and Australia at ANZ. “Taking an Enterprise Approach to running our regional delivery network is a strategic priority for ANZ as we look to develop a world class service delivery team and achieve executional excellence in terms of how we run and improve our operations day-to-day. Bringing skills and data to life in capacity planning and managing operating performance is a fundamental competence we must have to ensure our operational leaders are making the right decisions at the right time.”