Commercial Bank of Dubai is a mid-sized bank based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Established in 1969 with 10 staff and one branch, it has evolved into 24 branches, all within UAE, employing 1,200 staff members and offering a full range of services for corporate, commercial, and consumer banking. The bank is a highly profitable institution, recording one of the highest Returns on Assets in the industry, year after year.
Performance Management in Banking, Finance, and Insurance vertical
Methodology frameworks used:
- Strategy Management (Balanced scorecard)
- Quality Management (ISO 9001-2000)
QPR products used:
- QPR Metrics
- QPR ProcessDesigner
Contact Masood Azhar at masood[at]cbd.ae
“Benefits realized through the use of QPR Metrics are providing timely, precise, and relevant information to the CEO for managing the managers. As a result of which the managers strive harder to better their performance, due to transparency in the performance reporting.”
Masood Azhar, Head of strategic planning, Commercial Bank of Dubai
To enhance its strategic planning system Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) built an automated Integrated Performance Management system based on QPR’s performance management software. The Bank also obtained a paperless and cost-efficient manner ISO certificate with the help of QPR’s process management software.
In its quest to evolve and improve on all the aspects of management, the driver for deploying an Integrated Performance Management System came from the need to enhance the strategic planning system within the bank, at that time. These ranged from quantifying nonfinancial objectives, delays in the manually intensive review process, lack of alignment between strategy, plans, and initiatives, and linking of reward to actual performance/output.
Performance management process automated in two months
To address the above, the Balanced Scorecard, which is a wholesome management tool, was implemented within the Commercial Bank of Dubai. The strategy map encapsulated the spirit of strategy accurately and precisely, and the balanced scorecard served as an effective communication and management tool.
A three-tier planning system i.e. Organizational, Department, and Individual were envisaged and planned for.
It was also recognized that a system would be needed to effectively automate the manual processes in performance management. QPR’s partners in United Arab Emirates, IYCON, and QPR were chosen to partner with the Commercial Bank of Dubai and work closely to bring this framework into reality.
The initial implementation of QPR within the Commercial Bank of Dubai was carried out to automate the Balanced Scorecard. The project duration was two months, during which the Corporate scorecard and scorecards of 19 departments were automated and tracked on QPR.
In addition, scorecards of the 24 branches were deployed on a single-branch template. Most measures on these scorecards were tracked either monthly or quarterly. The system enabled the bank to have measures that were lead as well lag, objectives that were financial and nonfinancial, short term as well as long term. Based on a set of predefined criteria, the nonfinancial objectives were also measured in a quantifiable manner.
Swift implementation of the ISO 9001-2000
During the subsequent phase of deploying the Integrated Performance Management System, Commercial Bank of Dubai, implemented the ISO 9001-2000 using QPR ProcessDesigner as the vehicle for documenting its processes and quality system.
The bank received its ISO certification using paperless technology.
Corporate and individual scorecards are linked easily
The use of QPR ProcessDesigner has led to the creation of a single Process repository for the bank. This enabled certification for ISO 9001-2000 in paperless mode and provided significant cost savings against deploying a paper-based ISO system.
Building on its successes, the Commercial Bank of Dubai extended its performance management framework using QPR Metrics, to the individual levels. This phase saw the deployment of over 1,200 individual scorecards, based on the roles of the employees as reflected in their job descriptions, which tracked the performance and also ranked the competencies of employees. Thus, the individual scorecard was linked to the departmental/branch scorecards, ultimately ‘rolling up’ into the corporate [bank] scorecard.
Critical success factors in achieving an effective integrated performance management system ranged from senior management support and buy-in, allocating the right resources for the project, clarity of thinking and creativity, availability of data, as well as having the right partner in IYCON.
According to Masood Azhar, head of strategic planning, ‘the bank picked IYCON as their strategic partner since their approach was business driven and not technical oriented: “We have not been disappointed since we have received excellent ongoing support from the entire IYCON team, headed by Jude Chagas Pereira, whenever our people called on them for support and guidance on the usage of the QPR”.
More motivated employees, better management focus, and lower costs
Benefits realized by the Commercial Bank of Dubai through the use of QPR Metrics is providing timely, precise, and relevant information to the CEO for managing the managers, as a result of which the managers strive harder to better their performance, due to transparency in the performance reporting. In addition, quantifiable and objective reviews reflect an accurate state of affairs, which enables online tracking by senior managers through simple effective reporting.
Action plans, briefing booklets, and automated data collection enable managers to focus more on managing, rather than utilizing their resources in preparing reports.
The use of QPR ProcessDesigner has also led to quantifiable benefits such as creating, a single Process repository for the bank, which has in turn, enabled certification for ISO 9001-2000, in paperless mode and significant cost savings against deploying a paper-based ISO system.
Some of the key benefits of the online system are, consistency and standardization in workflows across all the branches, quick and cost-effective change management, online publishing of approved processes, low maintenance costs, enabling business impact analysis, easing the internal audit and compliance-related work, and much more.
To enhance its strategic planning system Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) built an automated Integrated Performance Management system based on QPR’s performance management software. The Bank also obtained a paperless and cost-efficient manner ISO certificate with the help of QPR’s process management software.
In its quest to evolve and improve on all the aspects of management, the driver for deploying an Integrated Performance Management System came from the need to enhance the strategic planning system within the bank, at that time. These ranged from quantifying nonfinancial objectives, delays in the manually intensive review process, lack of alignment between strategy, plans, and initiatives, and linking of reward to actual performance/output.
Performance management process automated in two months
To address the above, the Balanced Scorecard, which is a wholesome management tool, was implemented within the Commercial Bank of Dubai. The strategy map encapsulated the spirit of strategy accurately and precisely, and the balanced scorecard served as an effective communication and management tool.
A three-tier planning system i.e. Organizational, Department, and Individual were envisaged and planned for.
It was also recognized that a system would be needed to effectively automate the manual processes in performance management. QPR’s partners in United Arab Emirates, IYCON, and QPR were chosen to partner with the Commercial Bank of Dubai and work closely to bring this framework into reality.
The initial implementation of QPR within the Commercial Bank of Dubai was carried out to automate the Balanced Scorecard. The project duration was two months, during which the Corporate scorecard and scorecards of 19 departments were automated and tracked on QPR.
In addition, scorecards of the 24 branches were deployed on a single-branch template. Most measures on these scorecards were tracked either monthly or quarterly. The system enabled the bank to have measures that were lead as well lag, objectives that were financial and nonfinancial, short term as well as long term. Based on a set of predefined criteria, the nonfinancial objectives were also measured in a quantifiable manner.
Swift implementation of the ISO 9001-2000
During the subsequent phase of deploying the Integrated Performance Management System, Commercial Bank of Dubai, implemented the ISO 9001-2000 using QPR ProcessDesigner as the vehicle for documenting its processes and quality system.
The bank received its ISO certification using paperless technology.
Corporate and individual scorecards are linked easily
The use of QPR ProcessDesigner has led to the creation of a single Process repository for the bank. This enabled certification for ISO 9001-2000 in paperless mode and provided significant cost savings against deploying a paper-based ISO system.
Building on its successes, the Commercial Bank of Dubai extended its performance management framework using QPR Metrics, to the individual levels. This phase saw the deployment of over 1,200 individual scorecards, based on the roles of the employees as reflected in their job descriptions, which tracked the performance and also ranked the competencies of employees. Thus, the individual scorecard was linked to the departmental/branch scorecards, ultimately ‘rolling up’ into the corporate [bank] scorecard.
Critical success factors in achieving an effective integrated performance management system ranged from senior management support and buy-in, allocating the right resources for the project, clarity of thinking and creativity, availability of data, as well as having the right partner in IYCON.
According to Masood Azhar, head of strategic planning, ‘the bank picked IYCON as their strategic partner since their approach was business driven and not technical oriented: “We have not been disappointed since we have received excellent ongoing support from the entire IYCON team, headed by Jude Chagas Pereira, whenever our people called on them for support and guidance on the usage of the QPR”.
More motivated employees, better management focus, and lower costs
Benefits realized by the Commercial Bank of Dubai through the use of QPR Metrics is providing timely, precise, and relevant information to the CEO for managing the managers, as a result of which the managers strive harder to better their performance, due to transparency in the performance reporting. In addition, quantifiable and objective reviews reflect an accurate state of affairs, which enables online tracking by senior managers through simple effective reporting.
Action plans, briefing booklets, and automated data collection enable managers to focus more on managing, rather than utilizing their resources in preparing reports.
The use of QPR ProcessDesigner has also led to quantifiable benefits such as creating, a single Process repository for the bank, which has in turn, enabled certification for ISO 9001-2000, in paperless mode and significant cost savings against deploying a paper-based ISO system.
Some of the key benefits of the online system are, consistency and standardization in workflows across all the branches, quick and cost-effective change management, online publishing of approved processes, low maintenance costs, enabling business impact analysis, easing the internal audit and compliance-related work, and much more.
