A $15B financial institution sought SolomonEdwards’ assistance to improve process efficiencies across several key commercial lending operational areas. The bank had recently engaged a top-tier consulting firm that had helped identify production goals, portfolio strategies and underwriting guidelines; however, they did not address the downstream operational changes required to support the new direction. In particular, the client had concerns about data integrity, manual processes, lack of controls and system functionality needed to successfully implement the new strategies.
We performed an end-to-end review of the commercial lending process to determine what improvements were needed in operational processes to support the recommended changes and achieve the desired efficiencies. Through an on-site facilitated session with project sponsors and others in key roles, we were able to capture the current state, identify pain points and gain insight into the bank’s current and long-term initiatives. We then identified organizational, process and control improvements to address accountability, data integrity and control evidence concerns and promoted best practices. Lastly, we documented the desired future state high-level workflows, created organizational charts, performed a gap analysis, and developed a roadmap to achieve success.
We implemented remediation plans and interim process changes that were not technology-dependent, resulting in increased data integrity and process efficiency. In addition, the bank’s new risk and internal audit leaders utilized the documentation we created to further their understanding of the process and control environment.