Happy New Year – let’s make it a great one. Below are our top seven initiatives your firm can accomplish before the end of January to be in a great position to improve your back and middle office operations.
1. Review upcoming contract expirations and get a game plan together. Chances are your firm extended an expiring contract last year due to COVID and/or did not have a clear direction on how to structure services in a pandemic. Now is a good time, with better insight, to right size these contracts.
2. Digitization of mail and your files. In a remote work environment, digitization is vital and while your firm may have implemented an ad hoc solution, it is time to incorporate long-term thinking into your work environment.
3. Incorporate off-site records in your digitization strategy. Off-site records is the one cost area that did not go down during the pandemic and the one your firm needs to get out of permanently. Get a plan in place to be out of this business in the next ten years.
4. Identify outsourced services or in-house services that can be improved. You should be thrilled with each area of your back and middle office operation whether they are outsourced or managed internally. If you are not, get a plan in place to improve them. A key part of this review is to identify what services are no longer required/needed.
5. Output and MFDs. The old model is dead. You need a new strategy on black & white and color output and scanning to address how people are working now.
6. And of course, people. Reward the employees that made your operation work during this challenging time; it is an investment that will pay dividends.
7. And partners. Reward/acknowledge service providers who have stepped up. It doesn’t have to be a monetary award or renewal, but some type of recognition is always appreciated.
Interested in discussing any of the above items with the experts at Mattern? Let’s talk.
