8

Sa-Dhan Patrika

Volume 6

Issue 1

that there is minimum variability in the

participatory communication in a team

execution of tasks and activities that are

setting.

repeated. Handbooks (manuals) were

Future Areas of Focus

developed for loan officers that detailed

the critical operational processes and

Despite its strong foundation, SKS

p r o c e d u r e s . Further, manuals for

recognises that unless it constantly

a c c o u n t s , human resources and

innovates and improves, it will be difficult

administration, and MIS have also been

to scale up at the same pace. Its future

developed at the branch level, which

focus  therefore  will  be  on  risk

not only serve as guidelines for

management, data mining and

implementation of policies but also as

developing new products and services.

training material. Processes like

recruitment and new branch roll-out

As the organisation grows larger, it realises

have been standardised, albeit with

that there will be increasing risks, both

flexibility to adapt to different scenarios.

external and internal besides credit risk.

P r o c e s s mapping exercises will be

SKS plans to develop a comprehensive

undertaken for all the core process in the

risk management model that would

future.

identify these risks and develop strategies

to manage them. Further, it plans to train

d ) Automation of back office

all members of staff on the basic

processes:

principles of risk management. On the

As the organisation grows, there are huge

data analysis front, SKS recognises that

flows of information that need to be

while in its early stages it was sufficient to

processed quickly so that managers can

make decisions based on focus groups

analyse and react to data in real-time.

and anecdotal discussions with staff and

Centralised portfolio tracking and

borrowers, as the organisation grows it

accounting handled by head-office staff

will be important to have more

would lead to a slow production of data

comprehensive data-driven analysis. As

required for making decisions in the field.

such, SKS will be upgrading its MIS to

To overcome this bottleneck, SKS made

enable sophisticated data-mining on

early investments in its MIS to automate

customer and staff behaviour. A related

a l l the back office processes. For

outcome of data mining is to continually

example, the MIS team has internet

fine-tune existing products and develop

enabled all the branches and, for the

new products and services so as to stay

first time this year, summary information

responsive to the evolving needs of

for the year on key parameters was

clients.

uploaded to the central office after the

day end process on March 31st.

An immediate challenge for the future

will  be  to  maintain  the  core

e) Continuous use of feedback:

organisational culture while responding

An immediate

SKS constantly strives to improve by

to the challenges of growth. With the

challenge for the

gathering feedback from all levels of the

organisation growing multifold, both in

future will be to

organisation. This is done both informally

t e r m s of branch offices in new

maintain the core

and  formally.  Informally,  senior

geographical areas and the number of

organisational

management have open-ended and

staff, the challenge is to avoid any

culture while

semi-structured discussions with all staff--

culture clashes between the new and

responding to the

f r o m the field to the head office.

the old staff and continue to maintain

challenges of

Feedback is collected regularly after

high levels of motivation, satisfaction and

growth

e a c h event. The annual appraisal

performance  within  the  entire

process provides an opportunity for

organisation. By adopting a `system

feedback on processes and programmes

mindset' without being individual-driven

as well as a 360-degree feedback for all

and with professional management

individuals. Exit interviews are also

systems in place, SKS expects to continue

conducted for all the staff. This design of

to be a leader in serving increasingly

feedback

loops

helped

SKS

larger numbers of the poor with high-

institutionalise one of the core elements

quality financial services designed

that contributed to its success--open,

specially for them, in the most efficient

manner possible.

Praseeda Kunam

Ms. Kunam is Director, Operations at SKS, Hyderabad

praseeda@sksindia.com