0
High street banks suffer the same space management issues as any other retailer, however brands in this sector usually have a branch in every town centre. The cost-impact of poor quality data not only makes informed decision-making difficult across the estate, but also reduces the likelihood of maintaining branch consistency in terms of space design and space management.
Over the past 20 years, the retail banking sector has undergone a huge change with smaller banks being swept up by the larger groups, ensuing the demise of branches branded as Midland Bank, Abbey National and TSB. As a result, programmes of rapid refit and refurbishment were untaken as quickly as possible to rebrand old units. Several years on and the importance of quality data has never been more important.
To put this in perspective, Lloyds Bank have around 1,800 branches in the UK, whereas popular fashion retailer, Primark has about 160. In addition every customer visit is a potential sale or at least an opportunity for engagement with a client. Hence, the cost of ordering the wrong amount of POS, of not understanding the fixtures you have, or of leasing premises that are not fit for purpose could be substantial.
What can space management teams within the banking sector do?
Being able to query quality data about your estate is crucial in helping you to make the right decisions; for example:
- How many branches have more than 4 cashiers and more than 3,000 sq ft circulation space?
- How many branches have less than 2 external cash points and less than 2 merchandisable windows?
- Which branches have the 2002 consultation desk and how many of them are across the estate?
- How many branches have more than 60% total floor space dedicated to back-office functions?
Although the answers to such questions don’t offer solutions in themselves, they can help a bank’s property team to identify branches that are either outdated, using space inefficiently, or that have outdated fixtures; prioritising spending and portfolio disposals.
How could a bank achieve this level of intelligence?
The first step is to get a clear picture of the estate as it stands today. This could be via an audit - if CAD plans already exist – or via the creation of new survey data. Then, once an up to date CAD plan is available for each branch, they can be populated with intelligent blocks for each fixture type, and the different spaces tagged with their core business function.
Once the plans are synchronised with a secure online database, accurate reports can be created from anywhere in the world. These may be exported to an Excel format for other departments to use, and PDF versions of plans can be downloaded for marking-up on-site using an iPad – helping banks to share more accurate information, more easily.
Here at CADS, our business is to help any retailer to make the most of its estate. Our range of tools can help high street banks to achieve all the points outlined above. So, if you think the above sounds interesting, please get in touch.
Back to top
