Richard Stockdale CEO, Lloyds TSB Global Services

What are the processes you have outsourced and to whom?

There is a range: Retail Telephony, General Insurance and Cheltenham & Gloucester (mortgage related processes) to ICICI OneSource, Card Collections service and Scottish Widows processes to IBM and some Group IT work plus some Scottish Widows work to Xansa.

We are not slaves to any particular model. The bank sensibly set up a pilot operation in Bangalore, in a pure outsource model with IBM. The subsequent ICICI OneSource BOT gave maximum flexibility as we planned for the future. We have a further supplier, Xansa operating in an outsource model. Essentially the bank chooses the model to suit its perceived need.

How long did the transition of processes take and how did you handle the transition? Could you give us an account please?

There have been a range of processes migrated, so it is difficult to be specific. Typically, we would allow between nine months to one year from the approval of a business case to migrate a process into a live state. That would include all the preparatory work onshore and offshore, including in the latter case, the staff recruitment and basic and process training. Then, after migration begins the exercise of bedding down the offshored processes into business as usual, which typically takes several more months. However, there is no pre-ordained time-frame across all processes. Each one is unique.

What is the learning so far? How has your experience been vis-a-vis your expectation?

The basic learning has been as we would expect it. The ability to deliver high service levels in India is unquestionable and the standard of Advisors is high. There is a need, as there is anywhere else, to carefully select and train Advisors to meet customer expectations of service in an unswerving manner and to manage that service delivery on an ongoing basis, which is what we do.

In many areas, our experience has exceeded our expectations, in some areas it has been met and I think it accurate to say that in no areas has it been below expectations. Vendors themselves are obviously committed to meeting SLAs and it is important to give ongoing feedback and support in that regard.

What is your global sourcing structure? Have you offshored anywhere else? Have you outsourced to any other vendor onshore?

Lloyds TSB Group has a very active onshore outsourcing program, across a range of UK-based vendors and processes. This is an area where we are particularly experienced. As far as offshoring is concerned , India has been our only destination to date. Although, naturally we review all alternatives on an ongoing basis, we currently have no plans outside of the Indian market.

Were there any unexpected challenges that you faced during offshoring? And what is your learning from them.

A major part of any rigorous vendor selection process is to ensure that your chosen vendor is of a substance, standing, capability and that, in partnership, you can both ensure that challenges are anticipated and dealt with before they possibly grow out of hand. But life is a learning curve and the more experience that is gained; the less likely it is that unexpected challenges will arise. So far no daunting or unmanageable challenges have been thrown up. While we stay ready, we are not anticipating any.

How do you manage internal communication when you decide to offshore work?

Lloyds TSB is committed to honesty and transparency. As soon as is possible, appropriate communications are issued to staff and staff bodies. As you can well imagine this is a particularly sensitive area and the bank is committed to being both a fair and transparent employer.