Providian Trust: Tradition and Technology
Service Context/Key Business Drivers
* Providian Trust was headquartered in New york city. In 1994 it was the 10th largest service provider of monetary and fiduciary services through its network of 216 branches. * The company has 3 departments, Pension and Institutional Trust Solutions, Personal Trust and Trust Operations * The company’s financing products– including residential and business home mortgages and consumer and corporate loans. * The Company gradually slipped away from success and competitors due to the absence of effective business processes and infotech.
* Michael LeBlanc the Senior VP of Trust, Financial investment and Treasury took the initiative to manage the task and deal with the issues dealt with by Providian Trust.
Le Blanc was required to not simply carry out the brand-new technology however likewise enhancing Providian Trust’s service processes by implementing Gain access to Plus, a major software system developed by Select One. * With an allocated expense of $18 million and lead-time of 20 months the board lastly authorized the project in April 1994. * The Key Chauffeurs behind this brand-new effort was extreme customer need on the part of PITS division.
To decrease the cycle time and enhance operational effectiveness was a major objective. * In some cases due to unreliable or late statements Providian had to waive or discount rate fees, which some times cost the business between $2 – $5 Million. * The overall expected conserving by executing these changes was expected to be inline with $9.2 million every year.
Initiative challenges
* Most of Providian trust officers had 20-30 years of experience in managing client relationships at a personal level and had never used or touched a personal computer. The old school employees were extremely reluctant and resistant to change. The implementation of these changes required employees to become more sales and service oriented instead just answering and responding to client phone calls. * Internal Auditor Peter Storey was a strong critique of the whole process. * Todd Benari, the vice president of Trust Operations, headed the project management team of 15 representatives formed Le Blanc. Le Blanc had no project management experience himself so he relied heavily on his very inexperienced project management.
Results
I believe even though the reasoning behind the project is very strong and praiseworthy, and my understanding of the case, I am skeptical about the possible success of the initiative. * Lack of proper leadership because of LeBlanc inexperience in project management and Le Blanc seems to be the only person driving the project. A major reason I observed was resistance of staff to changes. The Human Resources poor management and awful timing did not help the cause. The decision to reduce the full time staff by 25% or 180 employees further sent a wrong signal and the resistance to change was employee’s way of expressing concern and emotions.
* Lack of proper time and quality management has created unexpected roadblocks and hurdles. The Simulations Work Environment (SWE) testing was originally planned to check the effectiveness of the new tool. The unrealistic initial deadlines, SWE testing never got introduced and LeBlanc was not feeling comfortable enough. His concerns were validated since the main users where mostly technologically handicapped. Due to lack of sufficient testing it is next to impossible to understand the potential problem that they may face in the future after implementation and also to know what kind of training is required by the employees to accept and adopt the change. LeBlanc Admits to being bull headed and does not listen or take into considerations and ignored concerns of PITS and Personal Trust officers.
Relevance and analysis
Relevance –
* I would like to summarize the points discussed and mentioned above- * Clear Channels of Communication, communicate the changes (via the CEO) to all employees, then identify and address the reasons for resistance. * Get employees involved in the reengineering process and participate in the process and explain the need to do so? * Have realistic and achievable timelines – Compile a detailed project plan. Divide the project into small milestones and set realistic deadlines against each milestone. Keep track of actual progress vs. planned progress on a regular basis. Implement strict internal and external audit process to ensure quality is not compromised for the sake of meeting deadlines.
Learning’s-
We face organizational changes in real-life. Some of these changes can be very drastic. We as managers may have an IT background or may not have an IT background. The success of the project does not always depend on our knowledge of the change, in our case the IT infrastructure update it depends on a managers project management skills. There ability to track and maintain time, cost, human resource management and communication skills. .
