Case Study Financial
The Challenge:
For organisations in the financial industry, these are difficult times. Finance businesses and organisations are faced with volatile financial markets, continued predicted slow growth in many European countries and heightened regulation with increased public scrutiny in terms of performance and ethics. This large financial institution, based in the UK, wanted to ensure as much stability and cost control as possible at the same time as demonstrating legislative compliance and having the flexibility to incorporate additional properties as they rolled out their aggressive merger and acquisition plans.
The Solution:
Two differentiators made the Ostara solution stand out from other competitive offerings. The pre-populated core data included an up-to-date UK standards and legislation module, which quickly provided visibility and clarity of any gaps in their compliance level plus equipped them with the means to address any problem areas.
The second differentiator was the contract and integrated reporting modules designed to drive best practice contractor behaviour and reduce the workload on the client’s employees by automating a suite of specified reports and reducing administrative tasks.
The quality of data collected enabled informed forecasts to be made plus gave a real-time view of the reliability and cost of assets which proved invaluable in Capital replacement decisions. An ability to log and monitor warranties meant they could be taken advantage of for the first time as the system was designed to assign any jobs raised to the provider of the warranty.
The Results:
More effective supplier management and strengthened supplier relations were achieved via incentivised performance contracts and the realistic KPIs that were put in place. The regular and impartial performance reviews utilised the automated Performance to SLA report and enabled the rewarding of the right behaviour plus resulted in a 3% saving on the maintenance spend due to the rebate structure.
The Contractor Portal put the onus on the contractors to log on and off jobs, upload certificates and complete RFIs as determined by the business. As this data was available in real-time the procurement team estimated a labour-saving of 20% freeing them to concentrate on providing excellent customer service whilst negotiating more robust contracts and making better-informed decisions on capital replacement rather than chasing contractors for updates.
Further savings in time and money were made by the business as the accounting system was integrated with Ostara and as such invoice reconciliation was easier and more effective. A 10% saving on the maintenance budget was made due to this activity alone in the first year.
The helpdesk team used the Audit/RFI functionality to carry out customer satisfaction surveys and achieved an increase in satisfaction of 30% over the 12 month period measured. This was partly due to the fact that employees on site had access to Ostara and could instantly check any outstanding jobs for their building plus provide feedback on the quality of the work carried out via the Client Portal rather than spending time contacting the helpdesk.
The role carried out by the procurement department and the value they deliver to the organisation was now evident for all stakeholders to see plus they had clear targets on how to consistently deliver this value going forward. As new buildings were added the ‘bulk upload’ functionality saved time and improved accuracy.
In summary, the facilities were better maintained at a lower cost by a more motivated and less stressed facilities team which led to increased satisfaction and retention of key staff across the business.
Want to better maintain your facilities?
Are you a financial business, perhaps based in the UK, and looking to improve cost control or ensure you meet the latest compliance? Here at Ostara Systems Ltd, we can offer a facilities management solution that can meet your business requirements, please get in touch with our expert Milton Keynes based team today. We provide innovative FM software that meets requirements for businesses located across the UK and beyond. Call us on +44 (0)844 880 2582, alternatively you can send an enquiry through to us and we’ll be in touch.