The big challenge of the retail restructuring at BCR is conducting a number of processes in parallel, to make up for the delay in Erste Bank's takeover of BCR, says Martin Skopek, executive retail vice-president of BCR.
The Czech banker says that the first year at BCR was tougher than expected, because of the scope and speed of the transformation process the bank has to go through. "We are pursuing a number of things at the same time. Complexity is much greater than with the other acquisitions made by Erste, particularly because of the fact that many processes have to be carried out in parallel and this means tremendous pressure on the management skills," Skopek told ZF.
Because of the delayed completion of the privatisation transaction, the Austrians could not afford a step by step approach, feeling they could not push back any of the processes to transform the bank.
A year has passed since the Austrians started the implementation of the programme to integrate and develop BCR, yet the first changes visible to customers only appeared a few months ago.
"The concept stage is one thing, things may look good but the implementation is more important, which continues day by day."
Eight major transformation projects of the retail business are now in progress, out of a total of 42, with many others directly affecting the retail, as well, especially those related to IT infrastructure.
Skopek explains that BCR retail is run locally, although the new holding structure of Erste entailed centralisation of some positions.
The shake-up of the retail offer of the bank has to do with the introduction of the new current account in the summer of 2007, which allows attaching a number of payment facilities and operations to it, sold as a package.
The head of BCR's retail was bolder about the sale of the new offer, particularly because the motivation of the employees includes substantial bonuses in this case, yet now finds himself having to adjust his expectations. "The sales force needs time to assimilate new products; as such we are slightly behind our schedule, given that we've changed all the sales processes."
Skopek says that a major deficiency of BCR has to do with the alternative distribution channels, with the client services alternatives, as sales continue to rely on the branch network.
The development of alternative channels is one of the major eight projects to transform BCR.
"We started with the call centre services, which are in highest demand. A first set of current account functions has been completed, with more to follow. To introduce a card-based self-service system that is available twenty-four hours a day, we are conducting tests in 20 branches to pick those machines that are best suited and I think we will complete our evaluations by the end of the year. We will also have an Internet banking offer with the basic functionality included at the beginning of the second quarter of 2008."
One of the major eight projects has entailed reconfiguring the branch network, starting from the separation of the retail and corporate operations. "We are now fine tuning it."
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