DBS Bank: Championing Change

In April 2011, Paul Cobban, head of process improvement at Singapore-based DBS Bank sees an opportunity to improve business operations and customer service. He finds the loan-origination process particularly cumbersome and a source of excessive customer wait time. Loan-origination is a complex process involving several hand-offs between departments, which creates inefficiencies through the separation of functions, a common issue for many large organisations.

The case begins with Cobban preparing to advocate changes at a process improvement workshop focusing on loan origination that involves managers from various departments of the bank. He discovers that recommendations from a workshop the year before have not been implemented. At present, Cobban must identify changes that will produce technological and operational benefits, while finding a way to convince all relevant stakeholders to do their part to implement the changes successfully.

In this case students should develop the ability to identify key stakeholders and challenges that they may encounter when implementing new ideas, technology and process changes in organisations. They will learn to assess concerns related to changing processes, identify likely roadblocks to implementation, and suggest solutions that could help mitigate these issues. Students can understand the importance of reviewing not just the technical or operational merit of an idea or process change, but also what additional effort may be necessary, in practice, to get it adopted.

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