It was a difficult task for me to find myself in a circle where turnaround time is not a keyword in the business management process appraisal. I join a stock broking firm from the banking sector where excellent service and customer satisfaction are the keywords and it’s about the total time it requires to consummate a business transaction. This turnaround time is not only key but as a matter of fact, an important key performance indicator for top management and at the branch level, for operations in the bank.
For me, customer/client delight and satisfaction starts with the first impression of the customer and the amount of time it takes for me to attend and consummate a client’s request, which should be low when compared with the amount of work to be done in a particular transaction with mastery of the process. It takes so long a time to start and conclude a particular transaction process. To facilitate a share transfer, from one stockbroking firm to another firm can take as long as two to six months if not years for it to be actively executed. This is so because documents have to move from one stockbroking firm, registrar, and central securities clearing system back and forth for them to be duly verified and moved or transferred to where the client desires them to be. It was frustrating for me coming from the banking industry where turnaround time is one of the major KPIs if you must be viewed as relevant and a high flyer in the bank. It was a great challenge for me until I decided to start making a change from my little space in my department in the company.
I was deployed to the compliance department of the company and so I started with studying the transaction process flow and then breaking them into various parts of a little process that can be monitored from start to finish. I discussed the challenge in a meeting with my boss and explain my discovery and challenges on the job and my frustration when jobs are not done/delivered in good time. This was in a bid to make an effort that will help facilitate and improve the entire transaction flow for a particular job. I was able to convince him and we agreed to start in the department by not allowing any file that comes to us for review and signing to stay for more than its required time in line with the work expected in the process.
These we continued, and it started working for us. We then extend it to other sections in the company as compliance, to monitor transaction flow to ensure that files are not left untreated for more than required on a particular desk, which will in turn ensure that if it requires the files to be processed and passed on. The same was applied, if it requires it going further to the registrar and CSCS, we have to reduce the time it takes from our end to ensure documents are ready and sent out to the organizations required to process and executed as may be required. Sooner we extended our checks and control on the time it takes for documents sent out to affiliates for processing to be actually executed and if not, we find out what the issue may likely be and make recourse to the required authority for immediate action and also if required, we make recourse to the client for any process that requires its attention.
At this time, the checks were extended to the externals who gave an insight that most transactions are unduly delayed because there were not usually well processed with some document missing and then reverting to the source firm is not their problem because they would expect that the firm should always check back to ensure their transaction has been processed as intended and if not, seek clarification on what is required. This is also where the major problem is, the stockbroking firm processing a particular transaction for its client often fails to check back on the registrar, CSCS (externals), etc or relevant office meant to execute the transaction as may be required as a follow up to ensure that its request has been executed as intended or not.
With all of the above, transaction processes have improved in my office and the process can only get better with a continuous improvement process embedding the processes and procedures and I’m happy about it.
