Business task force
The debt collector's story

Within this UK Retail Bank, personal bad debt had risen markedly compared to historic norms and was continuing on an upward trajectory driven by rising interest rates, growing levels of personal debt and record rates of insolvency. The business team had great technical knowledge but needed help in clearly articulating what had to be done to remedy the situation and to drive forward the subsequent implementation of these initiatives. Small initial successes boosted their confidence - soon they were flying by themselves.

Our impact:

• Rapid mobilisation of a cross-functional task force team and Board-level steering group with the clear objective of reversing the personal bad debt trend by the end of the financial year
• Conducted focused 'root cause' analysis as a foundation for defining viable business solutions (and avoiding a knee-jerk reaction)
• Used practical Project One techniques to build a portfolio of 40 'bad debt reduction' initiatives, each with clearly defined business benefits
• Led the task force team through the implementation phase, keeping the work energised and focused with weekly and daily action plans and with hands-on coaching of (typically) non-project people
• Provided high visibility of tangible progress through a KPI dashboard to maintain momentum

The business result:

• Exceeded first year target by 50%, making a substantial 'bottom line' contribution
• Reduced new default cases and enhanced debt collection effectiveness
• Increased the ongoing capability within the client team and the Executive’s confidence in their approach to managing debt going forward