Fit for Growth: Operational excellence for a top 3 financier of renewable energy projects in the USA

Case Study

Background

Our client is a New York-based bank that was one of the first financial institutions to focus on financing large-scale renewable energy projects. Through ambition and expertise, it has become one of the best addresses in the industry and is thus making a strategically important contribution to the success of the energy transition. Due to the rapid growth of recent years, the bank’s operational activities are now overstretched and can no longer support the required operational model with sufficient efficiency and scalability: Processes, know-how management, data governance and cross-departmental cooperation are reaching their limits.

Objectives

The aim of our project was to optimize the bank’s working methods both substantially – i.e. with a view to long-term scalability – and quickly – i.e. with a view to quick wins:

How can the bank set up its core processes in a faster, more standardized and modular way and thus become even more customer-oriented at the same time? How can all data that is exchanged and updated between many departments and systems in the course of deal origination and portfolio management be stored and managed as consistently as possible? How can internal knowledge be made available for continuous joint learning and for the rapid onboarding of new colleagues?

And how can the shared enthusiasm for the bank’s business success be protected and expanded?

Solution

To implement the project, we chose a multidimensional project approach that was both top-down and bottom-up, taking into account the strategic guidelines of the bank and the leadership team as well as the specific pain points and opportunities of the operational teams. Offsites, surveys and joint prioritization meetings were used to quickly create a comprehensive and uniform understanding of the status quo (point of departures) throughout the bank and lay the foundation for cross-departmental and cross-hierarchical improvement work.

Analytical and conceptual work was also carried out in a multi-dimensional manner, combining methods of classic process analysis with modern methods of user-centered product management. This made it possible to quickly identify which problems needed to be solved, which ideas and approaches offered which chances of success and which initiatives should be pursued with which priority.

The initiative portfolio was set up as an overarching program and handed over for implementation.

Results

The project laid the conceptual foundation for the bank’s operational scalability and created a quick and clear transition to the implementation (also supported by eStrategy Consulting). Operational efficiency and thus margins, employee satisfaction and, above all, customer focus and the bank’s long-term competitiveness can thus be secured.

Our role

In the project, eStrategy Consulting was responsible for developing the overall methodology, carrying out the process and pain point analysis, the structuring and prioritization process of solution approaches and their conceptual design, as well as for the overall project and transformation management.