A NEW BREED

on the case
computers,’ says Gillespie. ‘So when
they wanted information about any
customers who might be struggling
with a payment or wanted another
loan, they had to drive to the branch,
log in to the system, get that
information out, drive to the
customer, have a discussion, and
then drive back to the branch to
update the system.’
Customer focus
Building on what he’d done with
ClipApp, Gillespie purchased around
1,500 iPad Minis and loaded them
with all the information and tools
that the managers require.
This time, the basic training and
knowledge-sharing process was
carried out over just three days –
followed up with more intensive
training as needed.
‘Essentially, we wanted our
teams spending more time helping
customers than travelling back and
forth to branches and printing paper
out,’ says Gillespie. ‘Our purpose for
the consumer credit division is to
provide a helping hand when others
don’t. With this, we have all the
information and tools we need to help
the customer right now on the iPad.’
Within three to four months of
the launch, Provident Financial’s
consumer credit division had, in
Gillespie’s words, gone ‘truly mobile’.
Nobody was printing or collecting
lists anymore – or travelling back and
forth to branches – with the time
saved allowing agents and managers
to see more customers. And the
benefits were seen directly
on the bottom line.
‘Prior to that point,
we’d seen reducing
profits,’ says
Gillespie, ‘but
the technology,
coupled with
Andy’s One Best
Way programme
and the sharper
focus he put on key
performance elements,
resulted in us turning
around that profit decline and things
really started to improve.’
The full roll-out of ClipApp, along
with the recent launch of a new
lending app, has negated the need
for a clerical team because there
is no longer any paperwork, striking
more than 1,000 salaries off the
balance sheet.
Gillespie’s 120-strong IT team has
grown from two in-house developers
to 60, but these costs are more than
covered by the savings acquired.
‘Our recently published interim
results show around a £14 million
annualised saving going forward
from this project, so even though the
60 developers cost us money, it is
nowhere near as much as we are
saving,’ says Gillespie.
Meanwhile, the cost of the iPads and
app development were funded
through removing the
impending need for a
desktop refresh at the
Provident
local branches.
Once things like
Microsoft Office
and security
software were
factored in, the
costs ran to about
£1,000 per unit,
whereas the iPad
Minis were acquired for
just £500 per unit.
‘I guess that’s where my experience
as an FD helped out, because I was
able to put together a pretty tidy
business case,’ says Gillespie. ‘The
investment case was instant – I didn’t
have to do any of that top-line
benefits tracking, such as “I think this
will improve efficiency and allow us
to recruit more customers”, because I
was able to straightaway show a big
saving on just the desktop refresh.
‘And, actually, the remainder of the
cash for the desktop refresh pretty
much paid for the development of
ClipApp as well. So all in all, we
covered the costs by just reducing
the costs in other areas.’
Financial enjoys a
60%
market share on
home credit
14 information-age.com September 15