CIMB BERHAD ENJOYS 70 PER CENT REDUCTION IN ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSING WITH MICROSOFT-BASED eHR SOLUTION

SITUATION
CIMB Berhad is a fully integrated investment bank and is recognized as a market leader in the Malaysian capital markets. The only listed investment bank on the Bursa Malaysia, CIMB is a subsidiary of Commerce Asset-Holding Berhad, Malaysia’s second largest financial services provider.

It offers the full range of services in the debt markets, equity markets and corporate advisory. It also provides services in lending, private banking, private equity, Islamic capital markets as well as research capability in economics, equity and debt markets. CIMB also has strong market presence in the secondary bond and equity markets as well as derivative markets.

CIMB managed RM51.38 billion in bonds between 1991 and 2004, equivalent to a 48.2 per cent market share. Since 1991, it has raised over RM13 billion in initial public offerings on behalf of 139 client companies. In 2003, CIMB was ranked number one in bonds having raised RM9.3 billion.

CIMB Berhad Group comprises five major subsidiaries: Commerce International Merchant Bankers Berhad, CIMB Discount House Berhad, CIMB Securities Sdn Bhd, CIMB Futures Sdn Bhd and CIMB (L) Limited. The Group’s total staff strength currently stands at 822.
The company has also made its mark in the area of human resources, with CIMB winning the National Human Resource Excellence Award in 2002. A year earlier, the group decided to consolidate its internal operations by centralizing the human resources functions instead of having individual HR departments in the group’s subsidiaries.

With an expanded, centralized HR Department, there was a pressing need to tap on technological innovation to improve business processes and operational efficiencies. This prompted CIMB to deploy eHR, an electronic human resources workflow solution developed on the Microsoft platform by Microsoft Gold Certified partner, Mesiniaga Bhd.

Up till then, the processes in the HR Department were basically manually driven. Other key challenges which CIMB faced then were difficulty in tracking the status of staff requests and applications; lack of integration between various departments resulting in duplication of effort and data-entry errors; missing forms and ever increasing storage space required for hardcopy forms.

Before the introduction of eHR, the HR Department had to service about 600 users on a daily basis for various HR-related forms and requests. Because these forms and requests were handled manually and paper-based, it took a great deal of time to process. With manpower expected to increase in the coming years, the situation would only get more pressing.

As the information from the paper forms were not keyed into any electronic system, each time any staff information was required, it had to be physically retrieved from the files. For managers, this meant they had no efficient way to find out how many of their staff were on leave or who had gone for training.

“We spent a lot of time digging for information from the files, and then checking and verifying records with the users,” says Hamidah Naziadin, Director, Admin & Human Resource, Commerce International Merchant Bankers Bhd.

“Our mission at that time was also to change HR’s role from a very traditional administrative one to become more like a strategic partner. And how are we going to move ahead if we are going to be continually bogged down by all this?” Hamidah asks.

“We needed a system which could empower HR staff, making them a whole lot more efficient,” she says. Hamidah adds that empowerment comes from having “information at your fingertips” and being able to analyze the information to make better and faster decisions.

SOLUTION – A Winning Answer from Microsoft & Mesiniaga Berhad

In 2001, CIMB evaluated several HR systems including SAP, Peoplesoft and a customized solution from Mesiniaga, their Microsoft-based eHR solution. The latter was chosen because it met CIMB’s main requirements for an advanced, user-friendly and cost-effective system.

The web-based eHR runs on Microsoft Windows 2000 with Microsoft SQL Server 2000 as the database. CIMB staff access the system using the Microsoft Outlook desktop clients. With eHR, staff can now submit electronic forms in place of manual forms for leave applications, meeting room reservations, requests for stationery and so on.

To ensure effective buy-in by the staff, Mesiniaga implemented the Microsoft solution in stages starting with the reservation module for meeting rooms, company cars and drivers. Having familiarized the receptionists and secretaries with the system, the next module implemented was for leave applications. As this involved all the staff, Hamidah admits there was a “little bit” of resistance initially. “But today if you take that away, they will resist even more,” she says.

After that, it was relatively smooth sailing as Mesiniaga deployed other modules for performance appraisal, training, performance management system and stationery requisition as well as an online employee handbook. The core modules were rolled out by July 2003. CIMB is also exploring the possibility of implementing modules for recruitment and loan applications.

“With the performance appraisal module, we can now see the career path of the person with a click of the mouse. In the past, we would have to search through the employee’s file for such information,” says Hamidah.

Information on staff’s total remuneration package is also available on the system, and heads of departments can easily access the information to help them make better decisions pertaining to promotions or salary increments.

Under the training module, staff can view online the list of training programs available for them and make a request for the relevant training course. To ease the administrative burden of the HR staff, the eHR solution promotes the self-service concept. Employees are encouraged to update their personal information themselves, and the changes made via the system is automatically updated. They can also access the system to find out about available housing loan schemes and whether they qualify for it.

Employees can now access the online employee handbook any time and from anywhere with Internet access. Making changes to the handbook is no longer a headache as it is easily updated online compared to previously when amendments have to be printed out and distributed to employees.

As the solution interfaces with the company’s accounting system, claims for items such as medical and entertainment expenses will be immediately updated into the accounting system. And this eliminates the need to re-key in the data into the system.

“So it cuts down a lot of unnecessary paper work and reduces the potential for errors in data entry,” says Kamariah Mohd Ali, Sales Manager, Enterprise Solutions Division, Mesiniaga Berhad


BENEFITS

Administrative Processing Cut by 70 Per Cent

The eHR system has dramatically speeded up business processes at CIMB. According to Hamidah, the implementation of the electronic workflow-based system has “cut down on unnecessary administrative processing by about 70 per cent.”

For example, it would take a week for a leave application to be processed and approved previously. With eHR, the processing period has typically been cut to two days. HR staff no longer need to go searching for files as they can easily access relevant employee information from the eHR system.

There is also a trigger in the new system which prompts the approving authority if any request is not processed by a certain deadline. “And if the approving authority is on leave, the request automatically goes to the next person (in line). It is features like this which makes the system so much more efficient,” says Mesiniaga’s Kamariah.

The speedy approvals for leave, training and other requests have been well received by the staff. It has also resulted in less telephone calls to the HR Department inquiring about the status of their requests. The electronic workflow system has helped “cut down a lot of mundane work” and allowed the HR staff to make more productive use of their time.

Better and Faster Decision Making

As employee information is now available in the eHR system, HR staff and management have instantaneous access to the information. This enables them to speedily assess the situation pertaining the various staff requests and make better and faster decisions.

“This has really helped in our line of work as we need everything to be done fast. We have to be on top of the situation, and the information available is really useful,” says Hamidah.

The system allows for department heads to easily check if staff has been on sick leave once too often, or if double claims have been made. The system also captures information relating to aspects of staff performance, for example, if an employee completed a project ahead of schedule. Such information will be invaluable when his superior does an appraisal at the end of the year, says Hamidah.

Savings on Printing Costs and Storage

By progressively implementing a paperless office, CIMB is seeing a significant reduction in its paper and printing expenses. Another positive for the company is that it doesn’t have to worry about finding more space to store an increasing mountain of paperwork.

“We are not so heavily dependent on paper now. We don’t need so much storage space because the information is stored on disks now,” says Hamidah. This is one less burden for HR staff who used to “waste a lot of time” sorting out the thousands of paper forms submitted by employees each month.

The efficiency and productivity gains resulting from the eHR system has enabled the HR Department to cope with the administrative workload of a workforce which has increased from about 600 to over 800 over the last three years.

Protecting Existing IT Investments

The eHR solution was developed on the Microsoft platform to enable CIMB to leverage on its investments in Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft Exchange and Windows operating systems.

Hamidah concludes that developing eHR on the Microsoft platform was the right move for CIMB because it is cost-effective, highly reliable and scalable, able to easily cater for the company’s future business expansion.

She also points out that the implementation of eHR has been a major success. “We are happy with the system and it has become part and parcel of our lives at CIMB,” she adds.