Insurance & Banking

Issue

The client’s industry-leading position in auto insurance uniquely positioned it for success in the vehicle loan business. However, the 17,000 independent agents were reticent to sell auto loans, because the bank approval process took an average of six hours. The Highland Group was asked to reengineer the bank processes and convince the agents that the bank was a valuable asset.

Highland Approach

The Highland Group conducted an analysis of the Sales organization and the loan system. A series of visual mapping exercises helped to identify opportunities to streamline processes and remove redundancies and waste, while enlisting the organization in the improvement process. This engagement, along with an optimized bank loan initiation and approval process, focused sales support and training, generated enthusiasm among the agents for selling the auto loan products.

Actions Taken

• Developed and fielded a new Sales paradigm that supported the pivot from a pure focus on the core business to one that included the additional auto loan business.
• Developed and fielded Sales training and a System For Managing that training.
• Built a Field Sales organization and integrated that organization within the existing structure.
• Reengineered the loan initiation, underwriting, loan closing and customer service processes.
• Developed a sustainable System For Managing the corporate and field planning and support processes.
• Developed business cases and actionable plans for additional channels.
• Reengineered the operation and utilization of the loan system to support automated underwriting.
• Built a model that determined and optimized the automated underwriting criteria.
• Refined the propensity to buy model and integrated the criteria into target marketing.