Technology and Change Mgmt in Banks

Last month, we talked about how to minimize conflicts amongst four key

players-employees, the IT manager, business managers, and IT consultants-when

a bank's undergoing major technological and process changes. This time, we'll

look at activity prioritization in the implementation process.

The implementation process involves three phases-formation, implementation

and stabilization. There would definitely be an overlap of activities in these

stages which is the primary cause of delay in implementation. Although an ideal

separation of phases is not recommended, it is important for role holders to

prioritize activities in a particular phase, keeping secondary activities in

progress. This method of 'priority and residual activity modeling' (shown

below in the infographic) has proved successful in large organizations.

Activities enlisted in the upper half of the boxes are priorities of the

particular phase and activities in the lower half are residual activities. Let's

analyze each phase based on the activity modeling.

1. Formation Phase: This is the ice-breaking phase, so it's

important for change managers to focus on empowerment through job enrichment and

on-site training for employees. Training employees at their workplace in an

informal environment has been more productive than usual classroom training. The

second key activity is infrastructure planning for a branch. There are two

impediments in this activity-availability and quality. IT and business

managers need to evaluate vendor quality before drawing the implementation plan

and order placement. The same logic goes for data preparation. Customer and

business data in banks are complex and generic in nature. So it's essential to

standardize the data preparation activity and break down the fields into

parameters in advance. In case of outsourcing, fidelity and expertise of the

outsourced partner is to be carefully evaluated. Improper and incomplete data

can create havoc after migration as it is taken as the primary data source. In

some cases, it might defeat the whole objective of the program.

2. Implementation Phase: Coordination between different teams at

different locations is a major task during the volatile implementation phase.

Although communication has improved in many parts of the country, real time

problem sharing is yet to stabilize in many banks. For eg, when confronted with

the problem of system implementation, branch users' typically call the head

office and lodge a complaint. This can be rather vague, often at the level of

saying, “the system is not working.” Branch users should be encouraged and

trained in using other sophisticated means such as raising request

tickets,desktop sharing or a combination of remote sharing and file transfer

protocols to resolve last minute hiccups. Customer education is another priority

area during implementation.

They are to be explained as per their need-relevance-educate requirements.

All change management processes go through a phase of sedimentation and

stabilization. So, customers should be explained about future benefits at the

cost of present destabilization. Fall-back plan is another important activity

which shouldn't be ignored. Two out of ten cases surely go out of hand in an

ideal environment because of the dynamic nature of an implementation process. So

IT and Business managers should plan for postponing the migration or

re-instating old processes in case of any eventuality. Job card preparation is a

residual activity but has a direct linkage with employees' performance and

hence should not be ignored.

3. Stabilization Phase: This is an 'Acid Test' for both IT

Managers and IT Consultants, where they see the results of change management.

Business Managers also take keen interest to stabilize their branches in a short

time to start a 'normal' day. In this phase, all key role holders must use

the early adopters in peer learning programs. User trainings should be by a user

who has picked up things faster than others. This method has proved successful

in all change management processes as there is a feel of self-involvement while

learning from peer group. It also builds a sense of competition in others. Here,

IT Managers have to keep their eyes and ears open to all problems and look for

immediate solutions through technology.

In the initial days of stabilization, it has been felt that users need

on-line support in their day-to-day jobs. Depending on the size and scale of

technology transfer, on-line support centers can be made operational with

professionally trained staff. In addition to stabilization of operation, these

desks act as key sources in design and modification of software architecture. It

also helps the organization in product innovation with feedback on different

products in operation. These support desks help the Business Manager in

identifying early adopters (due to their regular interaction with operational

staff).

Although in terms of absolute business growth, indicators might be distorted;

fringe parameters like growth in customer base, increase/decrease in customer

complaints, time to launch a new product, rise/fall in fee-based income, etc,

indicate the resultant technology transfer.

Debasish Mishra, a banker, is presently researching on Technology and BPR at

the London School of Economics