Gist of the speeches made by the prominent speakers during the seminar.
OPENING REMARKS
Suresh Shah
Partner
KPMG -Quality Registrar
Middle East and South Asia
The growth in the financial sector has been steady and they have been looking for business excellence. They are focusing on all the elements that can help retain and gain customers. The business excellence model can vary based on
-- service and product
-- geography
-- service base
-- education level of the customer
The only way of survival is to look into the customer service delivery.
WELCOME ADDRESS
H N Sinor
Chief Executive
Indian Banks' Association
There has been a paradigm shift from the sellers market to the buyers market and the moment of truth has arrived where the customer service has to be directed at the common man. Although the organizations love to talk about it, it is still in the nascent stage and absolute customer focus is still not prevalent. It is imperative that we bring about the customer focus in the financial/banking institutions because once the market becomes saturated the customer shall move from one organization to the other for getting a better response to their needs.
In order to streamline their existing systems and gear up for the changing times ,the banks are undertaking a lot of quality initiatives like ISO/Six Sigma etc. Processes are being simplified to cater to the customer needs. "Five S" initiatives are being adopted to bring about a more focused approach.
KEY NOTE ADDRESS
Smt.K J Udeshi
Dy.Governor
Reserve Bank of India
This is a subject very close to the regulators heart and Quality in Financial and Banking sector is a welcome & necessary subject to discuss. The word "Vision" is very important. We need to know where we are and where shall we be heading by keeping this in mind. We need to get to a level of faceless banking since if a customer visits the branch abroad, it is considered to be a insult to the ability of the bank to deliver to its customers. WTO' s initiatives shall be enforced shortly for faceless banking. So, banks have to gear up and prepare to undertake various quality initiatives with the "Vision" in mind.
Banking is different from hospitality since banking relationship has to ensure quality initiatives leading to soundness of the processes and procedure.
Some of the most important concerns for us are as follows:
1.Corporate Governance: For diversified ownership of the bank, due diligence on the directors has to be done. Only then the quality initiatives trickle down.
2.Assest Quality. This is the next on agenda. Corporate need to have a good framework, concentrate on loan & investment policies. Good quality assets leads
to quality asset management.
3. Service: Quality service is essential. It is limitless and there is no benchmark. It has to be an ongoing process. Services in banking and financial sectors have to be timely, prompt and efficient. This is to take the competition from the forces all around.
4.Human Resource Development. It is essential to have quality human resource. None of the above initiatives work unless quality human resources is not available.
Good Human Resources are like the "ARM"
"A" stands for: Attract the best resource
"R" stands for: Retain them
"M" stands for: Motivate them
Training of the people has to be perpetual. Skill building is one of the ways of retaining good human resource. In order to motivate people, change the mindset and attitude of the people. Reward good performance to bring about Quality improvements. RBI is demonstrating this by going in for ISO 9000: 2001.
GOOD GOVERNANCE PRACTICES FOR FINANCIAL SECTOR
Dr.A K Khandelwal
Chairman & Managing Director
Dena Bank
Unless we usher Quality in our day-to-day activities, Banks cannot survive. Banks would be in serious trouble unless Quality HR is not retained. Leadership is the biggest risk in the banking industry. Microsoft would be in trouble if the top 20 people were to quit them. Capital adequacy and asset quality are all fine, but HR needs special focus. We are more compliance oriented, but quality drives the existence in the long run. Banks are more self-employees oriented rather than focusing on the customer requirement. They must take charge of the frontline service. Bring the best of people on the counter rather than having clerks positioned there. Quality initiatives have been external. It has to be triggered internally. Banks are spread geographically over different areas. We need to passionate enough to ensure that all the employees think alike across the geographical spread. Frequent change in the staff also affects the performance of the banks. We should be assesses by 360 degree feedback keeping the customer feedback in account.
IBA-KPMG Joint Seminar on "Quality Initiatives for Financial and Banking Sector" on 10th September 2004, in Mumbai |
