Just when we thought things were going well, this story comes along.  Its clear the road of change is rocky, when the change is business model level change.

Emile Sanchez, MD, BT Global Services finance industry solutions, says the future for retail bank branches clearly lies in turning employees from tellers into profitable sellers, but technology needs to be at the heart of this strategy.

“For employees to provide the level of expertise and customer support needed to make high value services sales, the best technology is going to be vital for both interacting with customers and providing an efficient way to re-train staff,” says Sanchez.

Source: Finextra: UK banks look to expand branch networks

This is such a vendor view of the world.  I hate to pick on this one, but if you are willing to go live with a press release, expect the debate.

The issue is not as simple as transforming employees.  That would assume each employee has a brain switch on their back, that we can simply flick and transform the person from a transactional employee into a sales employee.

Anyhow the other element in this press release is the move to increase numbers of branches.

EIU says between 1995 and 2003, banks in the UK closed nearly one quarter (22%) of their branches. But now nearly half of the 190 banking executives interviewed for the survey say their firms intend to increase the number of branches in the next three years, with one in five saying investment will increase in this area by more than 20%.

Relevance to Bankwatch:

Banks have to understand that technology change will not change employee behaviour.  Its fundamental first understand the business process(es) that you require, and that will then drive appropriate change in people, process and technology.  Change must be driven along all axes.