Operational excellence (OPEX) in financial services has never been more crucial or more challenging. At PEX Network’s recent All Access: OPEX in Financial Services webinar series, industry leaders convened to discuss the key issues and share insights on achieving OPEX in the current landscape.
Through various discussions and audience polls, several critical themes emerged. Here are the main findings.
Change management and cultural alignment
When attendees were polled about their greatest OPEX challenge, change management and cultural alignment topped the list. Stephen Donne, head of transformation delivery at The Nottingham, emphasized that culture change and collaboration are central to productivity and operational success.
“It all comes back to the culture,” Donne said. “It’s all in the culture surveys. In the last few organizations that I’ve been in, we’ve done a huge amount to look at the engagement of my teams. How many projects are people doing where they feel empowered to make change? Those key metrics tell me if I have got the culture right.”
He noted, however, that establishing this culture can typically take up to three years. In order to achieve this, he emphasized the importance of securing early learning alignment and buy-in across functions, addressing smaller challenges within teams and organically starting the movement toward a collaborative culture.
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Securing stakeholder buy-in
Securing stakeholder buy-in is another key challenge, with 19 percent of attendees highlighting this as a significant hurdle. Integrating this with cultural change underscores a large part of the solution. For meaningful progress, it is crucial to garner support not only from upper management but also from peers and team members.
Balancing costs and benefits
The cost of implementation, cited by 15 percent of participants, is a major concern too. While the goal of OPEX is to reduce costs and drive efficiency, the journey requires upfront investments. Rahul Zende, principal data scientist from Navy Federal Credit Union, stressed the need to balance overhead costs with the benefits derived from new processes and technology. He pointed out the importance of establishing centers of excellence for driving metrics and evaluating the impact of metrics.
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Metrics and accountability
Zende also underscored the role of metrics in tracking progress and ensuring OPEX accountability over time. He highlighted the need for different metrics based on the size and nature of the organization:
“If you have a small organization, you probably need different metrics to evaluate how much difference an initiative brings versus a large organization. One key metric I’ve seen is tracking how much your initiatives are moving to a more agile way of working.”
This involves quarterly tracking of accomplishments, understanding what carries over to the next quarter and identifying reasons for any delays, Zende added. Such meticulous tracking helps maintain focus and accountability, ensuring that projects align with organizational goals.
Overall, achieving OPEX in financial services in 2024 hinges on successfully managing change and fostering a collaborative culture. It requires long-term commitment, strategic stakeholder buy-in, careful balancing of costs and benefits and rigorous tracking of metrics. Yet by addressing these key areas, financial services organizations have a significant opportunity to navigate the complexities of the current market and achieve sustained excellence over time.
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