Success stories

EADS

Bank of Ireland/Post Office

National Rail Enquiries

Bank of Ireland

Government Agency

Bank of Ireland and the Post Office

"The Bank of Ireland (BOI) is a leading Irish bank and a major player in the UK financial services market. In 2004, the Bank formed an innovative partnership with the Post Office to enable the sale of BOI financial products through the Post Office’s 14,000 branch network, supported by website and telephone sales and service.

"A joint venture company was created, Post Office Financial Services (POFS), with the target of achieving a 2% market share of deposit based savings by 2010. To meet these targets, POFS needed to achieve substantial customer switching volumes and so concentrated on products that have a mass appeal within key market segments. To support the expected take-up, the products needed to be backed by flexible, scaleable systems and efficient operational procedures.

"To get the partnership up and running, a change programme was created in BoI and POFS to create a model for product manufacture and support and to get the first few products launched. The programme had to deliver a robust, scalable process, from both a technical and operational perspective, within very tight timescales.

"Oak Management Services were engaged by both parties to provide programme management expertise to manage the various work streams involved in launching the first three savings products. Oak took a holistic approach to change, ensuring that all aspects of technology process and people where drawn together into a single programme. They helped pull together a large number of business areas and suppliers to ensure that all stakeholders were fully engaged in the programme. This included product manufacturing groups, software suppliers, systems integrators, third party off-shore administration facilities, operational teams, sales teams and support teams. Risks, issues and communication were managed at programme level to ensure the big picture was always in focus.

"In particular, Oak managed:

• Agreement on tripartite requirements and ongoing stakeholder management of all key players. Of particular importance was reaching a balance of concerns and objectives to ensure that each party got the most from the endeavour.
  
• The launch of the Instant Saver from requirements definition through to national rollout and including testing, piloting and soft launch activity in advance of full launch.
  
• A multidisciplinary team of project managers from POFS, Post Office Ltd and BOI, responsible for various work streams, including Marketing, POL Branch Network, system suppliers/integrators, contact centre, internet channels, MI, testing, commercial/legal, FSA compliance, strategic fulfilment, operations and IT.
  
• The plan for initiation, design, development, testing, pilot, soft launch, national rollout and handover including the management of all technical and commercial risk.

"The three savings products were successfully launched to agreed timescales and subsequent sales have out-performed all expectations.

"Oak’s breadth and depth of experience has been invaluable. They sent in the right people for the job and they hit the ground running. There was never a feeling that we were dealing with junior consultants learning on the job and their consultants were always very professional. They were able to build strong relationships with key stakeholders and managed everyone’s expectations in a difficult and high-pressure environment. This was key to the success of the programme. Following the successful launch, Oak continued to add value by providing operational skills and knowledge to ensure success for the longer term."

Donal Heylin, BOI Director Corporate Development & Change

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