We’ve now explored the 5 Reasons to Transform Your Commercial Lending Business and the 4 Key Elements for Commercial Lending Transformation — why a transformation to the “technology of the future” is vital to remain competitive and grow in a digital and mobile world, and how to tackle the task of making that transformation a reality. This is BB&T’s reality today as they continue their journey to the total, enterprise-wide transformation of their entire commercial credit delivery model.
BB&T’s transformation to the future of commercial lending.
Over its 145-year history, BB&T has never shied away from innovation, looking to continue growth by adopting new technologies and adapting to the new “normal” for the industry. Today, that means real-time, 24/7, on-demand digital and mobile access to better service customers. BB&T recognized the need to completely transform their approach to their commercial lending line of business in order to compete and stay ahead of both traditional competition as well as the new breed of fintech and non-bank, specialty lenders—which became a major focus on their Commercial Lending Improvement Program (CLIP).
“Gone was the idea of an update of a servicing system, and entered the idea of an end-to-end, real-time system that made doing business with BB&T MUCH easier, simpler and faster!” ~ Barbara Duck, BB&T CIO
With the level of transformation required, it was understood from the beginning that the project needed to be comprehensive—including not only a new loan system but also corresponding workflow process and organizational changes—in order to accomplish process standardization and integration, straight-through processing, and organizational alignment and flexibility. CLIP was envisioned as the transformation of BB&T’s entire credit delivery model, including straight-through processing, and potential digital and mobile access, with the end-state goal of a fully automated credit delivery and risk management capability, with all the attendant organizational change management needed to ensure its full potential.
A key element, then, for success was the choice of a solution that could deliver a true enterprise-wide, end-to-end, straight-through processing solution that was digital and mobile enabled. But more, it required a true technology partner with in-depth experience in developing a detailed project plan and have a proven, successful conversion and implementation strategy that can be customized for BB&T’s specific needs. BB&T found both with Automated Financial Systems, Inc. and AFSVision®.
“AFS did what they said they would, when they said they would, and at the cost they said they would. At no point did anyone on the project lose sleep over AFS.”
AFSVision was selected as the cornerstone solution of CLIP, enabling the Bank to meet its goals to improve regulatory confidence, enable greater market agility, attain scalability, drive revenue, and improve the client experience. But AFS® was “not just a vendor but a true value-add partner and trusted advisor,” acting as a true partner in the successful implementation of the solution, and beyond. AFS was engaged in all stages of the project, including the initial design and process planning, providing not only the technology, but also the expertise and guidance to collaborate and execute the implementation and integration throughout the Bank.
The culmination of the partnership happened over 2-day weekend, when BB&T reached an important “Mountaintop” in successfully completing the implementation of AFSVision, consolidating 9 systems and impacting 100 others.
CLIP succeeded because it was well planned, it managed risk well, and it was well supported by executive management.
As BB&T continues with further stages of CLIP, the lessons learned from reaching this first step in the journey of their enterprise-wide commercial lending management transformation continue to spur success. The key success factors that were established at the project’s outset—standardization, consistency, engagement and change management—have held solid and remain in force. BB&T’s “investment in the future” with AFSVision and the CLIP project continues to put them at the forefront of commercial lending best practices around risk management, data quality, digital access, global real-time information, scalability to drive new loan products and revenue growth.