Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has introduced an
activity-based management tool in its money transmission and
lending operation in order to gain a better insight into businesses
processes within the department.
The Irish bank - which has 47 outlets throughout the UK - is
analysing staff activities such as the processing of cheques and
handling of personal loan applications.
Using Activity Analysis software from ALG Software, the bank can
track a variety of direct, indirect, fixed, variable and allocated
costs arising at every stage of a targeted process, and then look
at the viability and efficiency of alternative approaches to the
same task.
Anne McComish, senior accountant at AIB, said the deployment of
the software followed a successful trial in the bank's central
finance and leasing department.
She said the pilot project had resulted in people seeing that
the finance department helps to manage the overall business rather
than just reporting on its financial status.
According to McComish, Activity Analysis has already identified
a number of business processes that have benefited from
re-engineering, which she said had justified the bank's investment
in the software.
McComish said the next logical step for the bank would be to
deploy the software to help it capture all of the information about
activities conducted by the teller, the call centre and the back
office.
"This will provide a unified view of the cost of running our
business, giving us advanced intelligence about our business and
the ability to make more informed decisions," she said.