Lean Banking

In response to the recent economy’s woes, banks have placed a growing premium on reducing costs and improving operational efficiencies and many banks have turned to lean programs as a useful tool. Most of these banks will find themselves disappointed, however, because few lean initiatives, in our experience, deliver the expected results. The near and longer-term impact on costs proves to be far less than expected, and any gains in efficiency prove to be either temporary or too limited in scope to make a real difference. There is no fundamental, lasting change in the way the bank conducts its operations and hence little impact on long-term performance. The problem is not with lean itself, however. Indeed, we believe that lean has much to offer banks. The problem lies in the approach and implementation.