The conceptual Framework,

How well does the Business Processes Facilitates the strategy.

The Analysis of the PICQMEW
Investcore Investment management is a financial service business that operates
in the Asset management sector. In order to maximise shareholder wealth and
earn a good return on investment certain decisions making procedure should be
thoroughly taken. Most of these decision making involves buying, selling or
holding stocks that affect our funds performance and risk exposure. The
Business Intelligent Centre (BIC) functions as a library and information centre
that supports the asset management business cluster. It is therefore quite
imperative to understand the main clients and users (customers) of the BIC,
these constitute of the credit analysts, fixed interest portfolio managers, equities
analysts, equities portfolio managers, hedge funds teams, stock market dealers,
academics such as MBA and CFA students and new business consultants. This
section will discuss the PICQMEW of the business intelligent centre (BIC).

1.1

Process

Reporting financials is one of the major processes at the Business Intelligence

centre, the process flow diagram indicated below shows the relationship between
the analysts, the BIC staff and the head of research. To understand the process
design of the BIC, how this process meets the needs of the business and the
consumer one needs to look at the detailed process flow diagram. In this paper
two diagrams have been displayed, process flow diagram on the Business
( service provider) and another process flow diagram on the consumer ( Analyst)
indicating the value adding aspect of the entire process to the business .
The BICs process to the client (internal) is fundamentally important since it
represents potential returns/loss for the business should the end user decides to
trade. The two graphs depicted below show the flow of processes from the
research analyst to the Dealing desk. The Process flow diagram also shows that
the priorities of both process owners are different. It is however important for the
business owner (BIC) to understand the workflow process and importance of the
job and tasks that the Analyst takes responsibility in order to add value in the
process. This also enables both teams to introduce new ideas and improvements
within the process.
How the design of the process meet the needs of the business
and the customer?
Customer
Currently the reporting operations process that is done by BIC team assist the
analysts by saving time. The sourcing process involves following up on queries,
e-mailing, phone calls and arranging for deliveries and postage mail pickups

which usually takes a great amount of time that can slow the analysis process
on the analyst side .
During the first process when the research analyst informs the analysts of the
listed stocks that the research will be conducted, a list is also given to the BIC.
This enables the BIC team to plan in advance to make the sourcing process to be
convenient and flexible.
By the time that the analyst sends a request to the BIC, the information assistant
is able to give a quick response on the company stock reporting.

The business (Business Intelligence centre and the Investcore

Asset management)

There is cost saving by the business (IIM) because we source physical documents
from the supplier instead of printing them at the BIC. As a department we are
able to cut down on unnecessary expenses and in turn increase the income of
the business .The BIC as a business also benefits by being part of a successful
value chain in investment.
As business the BIC is also to serve their at a minimum cost, using minimum
resources. Investcore Investment Management benefits by having productive
staff that work well together creating value for the business and for the strategy
of the business.
Involving the BIC also assist the analysts to focus on the additional research
needed for the equities presentation to the portfolio managers, this in turn
benefits the business as whole.

Diagram 1
The Process flow diagramof the BICreportingoperations

BIC TeamReceive StockList to be

Analysed

Head of Research
selects company
Stocks

Company StockAllocationsto the

Analysts

ReportingOperation Process
starts

Analyst send arequest to the

BIC
Information Assistant 1
Sourcesthe Reportsviaemail
or phone call

YES
Information assistant 3 Updates
the catalog, physical reportsare
stored on the Library shelves

ReportsReceived?
Information Assistant 2
Confirmscomplete report and
attach pdf Document to
Approve

Courier or postage reports

checked for completion

Follow Up Process/ Use alternative

contact Details

Update Company
stockinformation is
available online via
the catalogsystem
for the analyst to
acess.

NO

Diagram 2
The processflow diagramof the EquitiesTeam

Analyst starts doing

research : 1.
Financials 2. Internet
3. External Meetings

Company stock
Analysis begins

Analyst provides
Investment Thesis

Approval

Implementation takes
place

Economics Team
Determine M acro Drivers

Investment Decision with

Portfolio M anagers

Yes/No

Compliance
check &
Verification

Trade on the market

The Fish Bone method (Question)

Values that is shared across departments in order to indicate the value chain of
this department and the ability to BIC The process flow diagram will be used to
illustrate the current situation at the Business Intelligent centre where this study
will be based.
A fishbone tool will be used to diagnose the root cause of the problems that
currently exists.
The 3s Model (Answer)

will also be applied to certain processes that require improvements and

modifications.

1.2 Inventory
Investcore Investment management is a service business that operate in the
financial sector, therefore no inventory is held with an intention to make a sale or
for profit generation. The Business Intelligence centre does hold books,
newspapers, magazines, journals, Annual reports and AFS reports within the
library book shelves, and store room for the purpose of research demands.

Just in Time - Service at a rate of customer demand

a) Books The number of books available at the library increase as the

purchase request is received by the employees. Academic supporting books such
as CFA books are also bought on an annual basis based on the request from the
Investcore Investment Programme which recruits graduate every year.

The request to order book purchasing system ensures that there are no funds
used to purchase books that are costly, unnecessary and sees to it that funds are
used efficiently.
b) Subscriptions To control the newspaper subscriptions and magazines, we
have a subscription control sheet that is maintained on a monthly basis by our
senior information officer. All clients (employees) who are within a 3 month
subscription renewal period are followed up with to ensure that the BIC does not
provide subscription to someone who might be unavailable , relocated or do not
need the renewal in the following year. All newspaper subscriptions are
registered for the daily mail deliveries that the BIC receives on a daily basis,
these papers are stored in our library shelves for 3 months for research purposes
in case a client might require a direct newspaper reference from a dated paper
article.
The magazines subscriptions mails are also controlled in the similar process.
Magazines, especially the international published such as the economist have
online subscription, this option is mainly by our top research team who are
always travelling and going offsite for meetings. The essential aspect of this
process is to reduce waste in desk delivery, storage space on the clients who
receives the daily physical papers every day. The BIC does not oversupply mails
(physical and digital) needed by the clients within the business, thus keep their
supply within a controlled system.

1.3 Capacity
In order to determine the current capacity level of the BIC, An analysis has
been done to indicate the type of capacity that this department operates
under. To determine the category level, a further discussion regarding the
implication will be alluded below.

Staff

The Library has three employees who individually handle separate

specialised duties. Their allocated tasks have deadlines allocated as
depicted on diagram 1 below with the estimated time spent on each task
is indicated on Diagram 2.

Time Estimated per day per Deadline Category

25
20
15

Average Scale

10
5
0

Daily

Monthly

On demand

Category

Weekly

Estimated Time per task per day

Client Request
Wall of Fame Updates
Coffee Self Service Station
Annual Reports printing
Storage Maintenanace
Shelve Maintenanace
Job Tasks

Book Purchases
Online Database Maintenance
Reporting Operations ( Annual reports & AFS)
Daily Newspaper client deliveries
Subscription Admin
cataloging
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Hours

Diagram 1 shows that there is a massive gap between the deadline

categories required for each task per hour duration, thus meaning that on
a day to day average basis there is sufficient time available to be used for
additional tasks within this business or within the cluster (Investcore
Investments management).

Clients

The main client of the BIC is the Investcore cluster team namely Sanlam
investment management teams, with the majority of clients coming from
the credit team, equities team, dealing desk, Economist team. These
clients send us requests depending on the research stocks that they need
to conduct, present or model. It is imperative in this phase to consider the
fact that, not all stocks or companies that are on the research list will be
traded on and analysed during that period. As an example out of 150
company stocks reporting at the same period only 10 stocks might be
analysed. Thus means that there is capacity to include other clients within
the business for efficiency.

Resources Available

The BIC lacks recent updated resources such as software database,

comfortable library furniture that can be installed to ensure that the work
flow between the analysts and BIC is well maintained. As a library and
information house, there are a number of people who visit the library for
online research, study or hold small meetings. But due to a lack of
adequate resources those needs are limited leaving most people opting
for alternatives such as their own desks and/or meeting rooms.

Excess Capacity

The daily operational activities of the BIC are quite limited as compared to
other similar departments particularly relative to other public or an
academic library. This is because they are focused on serving a group of
investment professionals and they focus on that segment.
With the recent technology and innovation improvement this department
has a greater opportunity to move from paper dominance business into a
digitalised business. This will also enable even greater time available to
bring about new improvements in the business.

The BIC has excess capacity, there is a massive room for growth and
improvement if this department receives sufficient supply of resources for
support. The client base that is served by this department is too narrow,
yet there are lots of employees who might need the service within the
business. A client base gap should be bridged to allow this space to
operate at its optimal efficient level.

Quality

The BIC as an information house of the teams within Investcore Investment

management values quality as an important tool in the service delivery process.
Quality at source is a principle that the BIC team utilises when delivering the
service to their clients. This principle is backed by the Total Quality management
elements involving Continuous process improvement, Employee participation in
which a 3 peoples team at the BIC are involved in making process
improvements.
To assure quality, the BIC provides accurate information on demand, effectively
manages time and follow ups on requests as well as the queries to ensure that
the service delivery to our clients is excellent. Certain job tasks involving
Catalogue maintenance, and ensuring that the reporting operations work flow
process is efficient and effective amongst the three staff.
We have sourcing agent (personnel 1) who requests the reports from the source,
personnel 2 downloads the matching pdf documents and ensures that they
match the sourced hard copied document before they are shelved. The last
personnel captures the information on the database for our clients to receive.
The information process is checked and rechecked by the main person
(employee 1) who ensures that the right information is sourced and captured first
the right time. The work flow process also ensures that certain errors such as an
integrated report without the annual financial statements are rectified during this
process.
To make clarity of the defect or worst case scenario in our work flow process can
be that a small mistake such as a typo can cause a major effect in the
organisation as a whole. If our client (credit analyst) has a client (external) that
requires funding for a certain project or possibly for business turnaround, the
client will need to make a presentation on the reasons for the cash demand. If we

had the incorrect name for our research there wont be any information available
in the catalog or in our shelves to assist the credit analyst with his research. This
will also cause delay in the whole process involved to provide funding for our
client external client and we will lose out on the potential future interest that
could have been earned from the party.
There is a simplified process amongst the three staff members ti ensure that
quality is maintained. This ensures that mistakes are captured.
The quality and not quantity matters in this business, 10 small equities caps
might require research material from the BIC for an inflow of 2 billion to the
business (IIM) and 1 equities company might require research material for a 10
billion rands investment into our business.
Quality at the source and Total Quality management elements are very
fundamental to the Business Intelligence centre Operations.
1.4 Measurement
Productivity Measurement of the BIC
In order to be operationally efficient the library has the following inputs involved
in their service delivery. There are three staff members available, IT Support for
the computers, Bloomberg terminus and software, meeting desk, book shelves,
magazine shelves, one study desk and small lounge meeting area. The number
of hours (labour hours) of each employee and the resources involved are quite
difficult to measure compared to the service delivered because this department
operates as middle man to provide information to our Investment teams.
The magazine and newspaper articles features by our portfolio managers on the
moneyweb, finweek, and financial mail can be counted as output that has been
produced by the business intelligent centre due to the research support that was
given. The Investcore Investment teams release about 10-15 written articles to
the finance and investment media in a year.

1.5 Environment
To support the overall strategy of the firm (Investcore Investment management),
the processes within the library are environmentally considerate. The annual
reports that are sourced from different companies enable IIM and the Business
intelligent centre to reduce waste in paper printing. The business uses original
copies that are issued to the supplier to save on the cost of printing and the
wastage of paper and trees.
As an organisation operating in the financial service environment, we have
regulations that protect the rights of those who supply information such as
authors and we also ensure that requests by our clients align to the regulation
standards that govern the industry.
Investcore Investments is under new leadership, on Thursday the 16 th our head
of legal announced via e-mail the departmental restructure of the legal
departments to be separated in order to better serve the clients and the
business. This ensures that the Environment management system of Investcore

Investment management and the passion to see growth in the environment and
as a business.
The BIC also utilises the PDCA model to maintain their environmental management system
(EMS) parallel to the businesss direction. This enable the department to stay relevant and to
grow with the industry.
1.6 Workforce
Workforce planning is done to ensure that we have the right people at the right
time, the most fundamental goal is to ensure that the business understands the
direction that the work space is heading. Without a good workforce plan it will be
difficult for the business to achieve its business objectives.
The business Intelligence centre is going through a recent change in workforce
due to the change of the work context. The business would plans to move from
the old traditional way of manual utilisation and paper environment into a digital
space in order to improve their service level to clients.

Current workforce

The Business intelligent Centres plan is to move into the digital space in order to
operate in the level similar to other library of its size. The project involved with
this transition requires new talent that will refresh the culture, streamline the
operation management and introduce a new service that will enhance the
competitive advantage. Amongst the 3 staff members mentioned, there is one
contractor whose role will cease in May 2016 in order to acquire an employee
that will stir the business into the new way operation. The BIC aims to employ a
staff member who has IT knowledge and library experience so that the migration
into the new digital space can become a smooth transition.
Due to a lack of workforce planning there has not been a clear strategic channel
that aligns the BIC and the employees towards a long term plan. These is no
documented process of how things operate due to the leadership that has been
heading the place for over 13 years. The lack of succession plan is a concern that
should be prioritised. Training and development will be needed to support the
new project plan, this will involve the staff and the users of the new system.
As discussed under capacity topic, the BIC is underutilised, thus involving some
level of wastage due to opportunities untapped. The new recruit is expected
notice these similar type of gaps and assist in making the business a success.
Succession planning is important in every organisation, currently the Business
Intelligent centre has no next in line manager that can assist with detailed
operations of the library. This is also a workforce planning that needs attention to
management and to the current existing employees.
An Area for improvement in this process
The process flow diagram that was drafted above easily indicated that the BIC as
department is underutilised, since it has excess capacity. The recommendation to
fill such a gap is to add more tasks and duties to this team by sharing and
transferring some of the research tasks to the BIC so that there could be support

and synergy within the cluster (team). As an information department, the BIC
must be more involved in thorough research support than just the reporting
operations, this also add as a core value to the research investment team as a
whole.
To eradicate the process flow diagram and structure of the business so that it can
move towards adding more value to the business than just handling one aspect
the two process flow diagrams of the BIC as a service provider should be merged
with the end user.
An interview with one of the equities analysts who assisted in the drafting of the
process indicated that more hours are spent on the internet doing research than
offsite attending meetings.
The Business Intelligent centre teams should be involved in the investment
meetings so that they can also be able to share knowledge, add inputs and
source documents that can assist analysts and create more value. The BIC staff
are not very clued up with the end process, the implications and impacts of their
contribution in this process. However the new process will create inclusivity,
bringing about ways for continuous improvement in this process and enhance
innovation. The goal of this new process is to lessen the burden of the client
(Analyst) through giving more support by rendering more services, and inturn
adding value to the business. This will uplift the current value of the BIC making
it the department that offers investment in knowledge and support to all staff.
Change implementation

My colleague and I had our first meeting with the team members
from the fixed interest and Equities team. From the meeting it
was mentioned by one of the team mates Mrs Makhaga that the
BIC offers of the research needs that thy require and that they
can benefit from the BIC staff conducting more research and
support. This meeting also brought into attention that they will be
able to produce a more details investment thesis and build

relationships with the clients through the extra time that they can
have if this plan takes place.
The BICs involvement in the investment team (research) will also
add a competitive advantage to the asset management space for
being one of the few libraries in this industry to collaborate with
their investment team.
Both two processes merged will add value to the new migration
plan into the digital space. The systems to be designed will be
easier to plan and implement with a refined research team
structure thus eliminating wastage through delays in the process.
The impact on lean thinking regarding this change
-

Instead of one analyst spending 60 hours per on average over

week using the internet and possibly overtime. Time will be saved
by transferring the work to the BIC staff who are able to take on
more work thus also increasing productivity to the business.
The costs involved with hiring a new staff should business in the
research space continues can be saved since there will be more
work leverage through the BIC staff.
The two teams working together can decide on a full digital
migration that eliminates the paper world, thus meaning that
costs in printing will be saved.
With a unified research team it will be easy to handle big projects
and meet deadlines.

7 Step Process for implementing a small win

Intervention
List of small wins