The financial services industry is faced with growing pressures. Differentiation is eroding as industry products and services become more of a commodity. Financial and regulatory constraints are growing. There is an increased pressure on fees, returns and yields are lower and back office outsourcing is on the rise. Combined, these factors are creating an enormous pressure on profits. Today more than ever, there is an urgent need for the financial services industry to increase process efficiency and employee productivity.

As the world around it changes, the financial services industry has largely continued with the same processes and thinking that proven successful in the past, but do not address the greater efficiencies required in response to these greater pressures of today’s business environment. The result? See figure at right. Most wasteful processes are invisible, which makes the task of improving them even more difficult.