Process Management - Financial Services

The fast-growing mortgage division of a Fortune 500 diversified financial services company was experiencing growing pains, which manifested themselves in process and procedural breakdowns, delays in responding to applicants, and an intolerably high percentage of abandoned business. The parent company had recently embarked on an initiative of Process Excellence to embed the principles of Six Sigma into all the operating divisions. The corporate Vice President for Process Excellence engaged ICP Associates to guide the implementation in the mortgage division.

ICP Associates worked at the leadership and operating levels of the mortgage division to construct a program that would minimize interruptions to ongoing operations. Collaborating with the leadership team, we identified the areas that would most benefit from the application of Six Sigma tools and techniques and yield immediate results. ICP Associates also outlined the key elements of a change management strategy. Facilitating several meetings with the CEO and his direct reports, we identified the right resources, scoped specific projects, and established timelines for results. We worked on an ongoing basis with the leadership team on a formal and informal basis, during the course of this 4-month engagement.

At the same time, ICP worked on a weekly basis with the two emerging leaders designated by the leadership team as Process Excellence Leaders. While these two individuals received extensive formal technical training, they were challenged with attempting to apply theoretical statistical techniques to the very real problems confronting the business. Our Associates served as coaches, mentors, and teachers for these Process Excellence Leaders throughout the phases of their formal training and its application to their projects. We coached them in the identification of data needs, the development of data collection strategies, sophisticated statistical analyses, and the presentation of recommendations to the leadership team.