Flatlining operational performance a worry for A/NZ Financial Services businesses

Sydney, Australia – 18 May 2023: According to the latest research from ActiveOps, a leading management process automation company, organisations in Australia and New Zealand have seen their operational performance flatline in the first three months of 2023, halting the gains the region enjoyed in the wake of the pandemic.

OpsTracker: The Performance Tracker for Operations in Financial Services Q2 report shows Australia and New Zealand’s overall OpsIndex score was stable at 60.3% in the opening quarter, though it remains higher than a year ago. The struggle to make further gains may cause some concern given there were already signs that capacity is being squandered and that operations leaders are unsure of how to get the most out of their teams. This is an area leaders will need to address over the coming months if they want to continue the upward trajectory of post-pandemic gains.

The OpsTracker report analyses insights from over 30,000 employees to identify the trends that are impacting operations at financial institutions across Australia and New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, and North America. This edition of the report reviews how operations teams have been navigating the current environment and what they can do to improve operational performance over the coming months.

ActiveOps’ OpsIndex score seeks to assess how well operations are being run across a range of metrics that matter most including: agility, control, effectiveness, efficiency, and focus. The relationship between how well organisations are faring across these metrics can give leaders unique insight, regardless of the types of applications or processes they implement—into which metrics they need to improve on or adapt to better run their operations.

As organisations attempt to revive a sense of normalcy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, external events continue to disrupt the operating environment. Financial institutions went into the year already contending with the challenges caused by high inflation, rising interest rates and fears of recession. With the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March sparking a fresh crisis in the global banking market, the outlook has become even more uncertain. That is making it a challenge even for the best performing operations teams to plan effectively as the volume of inbound work becomes more volatile and forecasting becomes trickier.

Jane Lambert, Managing Director APAC at ActiveOps says: “The economic backdrop in Australia is more positive than some other regions as the Reserve Bank has paused interest rate rises, giving respite to homeowners and the International Monetary Fund expects Australia’s economy to expand 1.6% this year, avoiding the recession predicted for other advanced economies.”

Lambert continued: “This is translating into operational performance, as A/NZ continues to be the top performing region. However, the flatlining in overall performance in the first quarter might be a signal that further gains will be a struggle to achieve. Operations teams were already showing signs of wasted capacity and now productivity, as measured by work out per paid hour, is starting to dip. If that rebounds over the coming quarter, it could be attributed to a seasonal drop over the summer period but if work out per paid hour continues to decline, the problem may be deeper seeded and will be something to watch in the months ahead. For now, financial services companies in A/NZ need to continue to focus their attention on unleashing capacity and getting the best from their employees.”

To read a copy of the full report please go to: www.activeops.com/opstracker.

For this report, data from over 30 financial services businesses with over 30,000 employees was analysed. We looked at the OpsIndex performance in Q1 2023 compared to the previous quarter and Q1 2022. The data covered organisations in Australia & New Zealand, the UK & Ireland, and North America.