Situation

Lean-related improvements in operational efficiency can significantly enhance a company’s performance, boosting productivity, efficiency, and margins by optimizing workflows and processes.

At one large European bank, executives wanted to speed the account-opening process for corporate customers. Poor IT integration and fragmented oversight meant that manual entries, overlapping requirements, and high volumes of paperwork were the order of the day—bogging down opening times, adding costs, and frustrating potential customers. Conflicting rules for accounts and marketing brochures using different names for seemingly similar products confused internal teams and clients alike.

This predicament seemed tailor made for the lean approach. The bank’s leaders wondered if it could help automate the account-opening process, streamline product options, and better integrate the customer-relationship-management (CRM) function—a long overdue improvement. Initial assessments indicated that such a project would pay back its expenses in under three years, with potential labor cost savings of up to 50 percent for the process of opening corporate accounts.

Complication

While lean techniques could address these issues, the bank had experienced roadblocks in previous lean programs, which in the end failed to deliver the hoped-for returns. In one case, the process just moved too slowly. The division manager charged with leading the project...