The challenge

The client employs QA as a key control to monitoring compliance of regulatory requirements and to aid improvements with the customer experience. QA was undertaken by and for a number of different operational teams covering sales and customer service activities, using a variety of approaches.

The client recognised that an improved QA database was required to support all the QA activity, and a partner was sought to provide this.

Solution

BPA Quality was selected from a competitive process as we offered a robust and flexible solution and demonstrated a deep understanding of quality assurance. The requirement to implement the QA database was complex as it involved managing the specific requirements of a wide range of business functions.

BPA Quality PLUS was implemented across 20 lines of the client’s business, including sales, compliance and customer service operations, as well as the integration of a quality programme between in-house teams and outsourced vendors. The implementation incorporated up to 2000 users with a quality-related role and involved over 250 different evaluation forms.

A series of focused workshop sessions, known as ‘hot houses’, were conducted, designed to bring business users together to fully scope out and define the requirements for the implementation. BPA developers, both attending the workshop and those working back in BPA’s European Research Centre, were able to quickly configure and build the system to the requirements and then play back in real-time to the assembled group to further inform and guide the sessions.

Following the hot house sessions, the BPA systems team worked to configure and build the system to meet the business needs, with regular check-in calls to ensure the build was on the right track and to capture any changes in the requirements. The work was staged appropriately in two key phases and each stage had a period of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) to ensure everything was working to requirements and to capture any issues.

Despite the scale and complexity of the project, a phased implementation was undertaken and in just seven months from gathering of the initial requirements, the system was live for all users.

Result

Up to 2,000 users across 20 lines of business were given access to the BPA Quality PLUS platform, with more lines of business going live after the initial implementation. With the single quality management platform, the client was able to realise the best practice from different business areas and gain opportunities to enhance established quality programmes.

The system enabled those involved in quality to better see and manage workflows, ensuring that key actions in the quality process were taken at the right time. Automated workflows allowed for more efficiency and ensured that important actions did not get missed in the quality process.

The client was able to utilise the BPA Quality PLUS calibration tool to further improve their quality management. The quality platform delivered other benefits including enhanced controls including management information, improved reliability (virtually no downtime), better ease of use, the ability to make changes more quickly and enhanced functionality such as a QA calibration tool.

Feedback

Keith Ellis, Sales Conduct and Development Director, said: “The relationship with BPA has continued in an extremely productive manner with good collaboration between teams to continually develop and improve the QA database tool and address any minor issues that have arisen. The success of the working relationship has been such that at monthly business reviews to govern the relationship, there are few issues to discuss. I have been extremely pleased with the support provided by BPA and consider this to be a true partnership which will help us as it develops to meet our strategy.”

He went on to acknowledge: “The timescales were very challenging, but BPA has worked seamlessly with the project team to deliver on time and to budget with very positive feedback from the business users. They have demonstrated a willingness to adopt the new approach and provided excellent support throughout this.”

In terms of learnings from the project, the client reflected that having senior management buy-in and good project leads, both on the client and supplier side, was extremely important to ensure the project met its targets. They laid much importance on the investment in time in bringing all stakeholders together from the start to understand business requirements alongside system capabilities. The hot house sessions were effective in ensuring this. Frequent and open communication was also considered key in order to maintain momentum, build confidence and ensure an agile approach to the system, build, configuration and implementation.