It is impossible to optimally manage resources around multiple dynamic projects, holidays, busy periods and external events. Key resource risk, like all risk, is never eliminated, but managed. As a result, institutions are often found short of skilled people, where knowledge will often be concentrated in a few individuals.
We don't have all of the answers. But our people do know the questions. We can't replace key staff overnight, but we can provide interim management and resource solutions which provide our clients with greater flexibility. We can reduce the conflicting demands on management and key staff by allowing you to utilise their knowledge better.
In addition, we are able to introduce greater control, clear backlogs of issues, improve efficiency or strengthen a team by recruiting or developing the current staff.
We are also able to source long term contract or permanent staff.
For example...
Outsourcing of operations support staff presents a number of catch-22 situations. Analysis is hampered before an announcement to staff, who are then required to support their own redundancy, which hampers analysis; automation and improvements to control are required prior to transition, while control is jeopardised and progress limited by staff turnover and poor motivation; management attention is thus compromised, while negotiating crucial agreements.
By supporting management and key staff in day-to-day and project responsibilities, we are able to provide crucial support to both. Management control is enhanced, key resource risk reduced, transition made more efficient and ongoing service levels improved.
The successful migration of a current business is not the end of the story. New business and changing regulatory requirements will always need to be managed. The requisite knowledge and skill sets may no longer exist within the client organisation and may be absent in the service provider.
Illustrative project
Development manager
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The client, a European investment bank, had undertaken a large project to consolidate global operational activities for its derivatives business into one location, prior to moving to a new technology platform. This represented a major effort for the bank's existing resources: management time was at a premium; experienced resources and technology and project staff were the subject of conflict between project roles and business as usual activities. At the same time, the existing infrastructure needed to develop to absorb additional volumes.
One Fenix consultant, working with another consultancy firm, recommended operational and technological changes to the existing support infrastructure to enable this programme's successful implementation. With our operations management experience, we were able to foresee the likely stress points and suggest suitable changes. Our consultant, working with one of our business analysts, then took on an interim management role as development manager for the core processing system, taking ownership of a range of business as usual activities.
In this role, and with a limited budget, we were able to make imaginative system changes, enhancing performance and stability in the face of dramatically increasing volumes. Operational control - and indirectly, efficiency - was improved, by strengthening a range of front to back office controls (we do not believe that there is always a trade-off between efficiency and operational control). Business development was also supported, in spite of the focus necessarily directed elsewhere.
Perhaps most important, though, was our contribution in supporting the client's operations team by reducing the need for operations input to technology: from managing to merely approving activities and by minimising the input required for specification, testing and implementation. In addition to our direct contribution, having experienced, multi-skilled consultants on-site provided greater depth and flexibility to the organisation's project and operations capabilities.
