From Kintsugi to Business Process Management

PRB took part at FORUM ABI Lab 2014 and contributed with a talk during the "CASE STUDY" session.

During the session devoted to "new models of interaction based on organizational and process innovation", our speaker presented the report "Holism in banking processes".

Besides the talk during the "CASE STUDY" session, PRB also had the pleasure of organizing a workshop entitled “the Holistic Society” during FORUM ABI Lab 2014.

Workshop Holistic Society
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The Kintsugi metaphor

Our speaker used the Kintsugi metaphor to represent the holistic concept. Kintsugi, literally "repairing with gold", is the Japanese practice of using precious metals to repair ceramic objects, using the fragments to create a precious item both in monetary and artistic terms.

Kintsugi is a metaphor for holism, where the whole has a greater value than the sum of the parts. The same thing happens in organizations, where the value a business result adds stems from the effective combination of contributions from different skills.

Wikipedia defines BPM as a holistic approach that aligns all the efforts of an organization with the ultimate goal of the process. The division of labour in an organization, which is needed to reach individual efficiency, requires a holistic linkage so that the individual efforts can achieve a high value overall result. click the image to show the key differences among the traditional method and holistic one

Thanks to the automations made possible by technological developments, people are left with the more intelligent decisions: monitoring flows and exception handling.

The results at a glance

The way we work has changed and has yet to change a lot. Customers have skills and information like never before, and demand high quality services at competitive costs. Banking staff members no longer have to perform repetitive tasks with low added value. Technology has automated many of these tasks and customers are able to perform almost all transactions on their own from their smartphones. Banking staff members have to deal with relations with the customer, monitor flows and manage non-compliances. To achieve further efficiency, our investments must therefore be focused on the people-intensive working stages, that is the unstructured stages that require decision-making and controlled discretion.

These activities are neglected or improperly supported by traditional software technology. For this reason, a new category of software tools is emerging to fill this gap.

PRB has been successfully introducing this innovation in several banks for years.

During the ABI Lab Forum in 2014, PRB presented the results obtained by introducing this innovative software in a savings bank employing about 400 people and organized into about 50 branches.

The PRB project focused on the human-centric stages of the typical bank processes and complemented the outsourcer management system without overlap.

The results were remarkable in monetary terms. The task processing times were often halved, and consequently so were the labour costs.

As in Kinsugi, by filling the gaps with a valuable innovative product, the value of the whole became precious.

Holism in banking processes

Paolo Poto / Key Account Manager, PRB
Full version 22'

Presentation
Holistic society, the winning model for banks and EXPO

Antonio Carbonera / Partner - Executive Vice President, PRB

Interview by Bancaforte