The last economical recession forced the
businesses to seek measures to optimise activity, non-traditional ways to cut
expenditure, and more efficient solutions to introduce the products and
services to the market. Both global corporations and smaller local companies
turned back to outsourcing. And the new ways of payment should stir this market
even more.
Untapped
possibilities
Banks and other financial institutions
have been relying on rather conservative policy of outsourcing. However, global
economical processes forced this sector to change: to focus on the main
activity (lending and deposit collection) and entrust many other activities to
external companies.
For instance, in most of the developed
countries, the networks of ATMs and credit card terminals are managed not by
banks, but by specialised companies. They have more experience and specialists
of appropriate qualification to pursue this activity at the lowest possible
cost.
“In Lithuania, like in many other
countries, in the shopping centres there are three or four ATMs of different
banks. Maintaining those costs a lot of money and the load of the machines is
far from maximal. Therefore, it would be much cheaper to keep one or two ATMs
and thus increase their load (more operations will be performed) and reduce
maintenance expenditure,” said Vladas Lapinskas, the Executive Director for the
company Penkių Kontinentų Bankinės Technologijos (BS/2).
According to Mr. Lapinskas, in such
countries as Finland, all ATMs have been connected to a common network. The
people do not have to look for "their" ATM, where the operations
would be cheaper, and the banks spend less on network upkeep. It was estimated
that due to this reason, average load of a machine in Finland is up to five
times larger than in Lithuania, and the cost of one operation is as much lower.
The path similar to Finland's was also
taken by Sweden and other European countries; the first steps have been made by
Lithuania as well (two banks used to provide equal conditions for operations in
the ATMs; recently four more banks have joined their networks).
Outsourcing by
instalments
"Modern hardware and software and
qualified specialists help to save, but it also costs a lot. The banks having
experienced significant financial loss, refrain from such investments and thus
a vicious circle is created: with few investments it is difficult to achieve
higher quality results," said Mr. Lapinskas.
Due to this reason, the company held by
Penki Kontinentai Group presented a new solution to its customers - Lithuanian
and foreign banks: rent or lease of outsourcing.
“We offer obtaining all our hardware or
software solutions as well as the solutions of Wincor Nixdorf represented by
BS/2 under completely different conditions that do not require a large lump
investment," explained Mr. Lapinskas.
According to Mr. Lapinskas, banks get
economical benefit from such cooperation. For instance, having invested five
litas, the banks receive the measures, which allow saving ten litas or earning
them from additional services.
BS/2 provides the conditions to the banks
and other financial institutions to obtain by rent or lease not only ATMs, but
also specialised software, the entire IT infrastructure, and the services of
qualified specialists. Naturally, the trust of banks and respective data
security are necessary.
“Long-term cooperation with large foreign
banks indicates that the partners trust us. And the new partners should be at
leased partially reassured by the fact that the companies of Penki Kontinentai
were awarded the highest level international data security certificate PCI DSS,
and the standards PA DSS, ITIL and ISO 20 000 will soon be introduced,"
said the Head of BS/2.
The advantages
outweigh the shortcomings
According to the specialist, probably the
major difficulty related to introducing outsourcing is psychological. “It can
be compared to the situation when someone suggests giving up the old, own car
and starting using a modern and multifunctional one, which will not belong to
you, but will allow doing much more,” explained Mr. Lapinskas.
Moreover, in the longer term the
outsourcing can be more expensive. However, if you purchase a new apartment for
instalments, you pay not only the price of the apartment, but also the interest
for the credit. According to Mr. Lapinskas, outsourcing is sometimes avoided
because of the fear to give up old and usual infrastructure.
“It is questioned how new systems
suggested by an external company would be installed. Today installation of
different IT systems is much simpler and faster than some time ago. Therefore,
this factor should not be feared,” said the specialist.
According to Mr. Lapinskas, the potential
shortcomings of introducing outsourcing are completely outweighed by their
advantages. First, it is the optimisation of activity and related economical
benefit. Predominance of the service sector in the Western countries indicates
that companies tend to specialise in narrower fields and transfer secondary
functions to the specialists of the respective fields.
