I remember buying my first home.

Excitement.

That died quickly.

Problems: Bare walls. No idea. Admin.

Solution? 1:1 help with an expert. They guided me through the paperwork and admin.

So if new house = expansion..

Right now, PNC, a community focused U.S. banking behemoth, are upsizing.

Massively. To a mansion.

As per Reuters, PNC Bank just invested $500m to expand and renovate its branch network across the U.S. I will deep dive into this, to help you connect the dots between disruptive events and your services. But first..

The Source: What we’ll cover today

🏠 What: Deep dive on PNC’s branch expansion.

🏠 Who: It highlights the key players involved.

🏠 Where: The focus is on the company's operations within the U.S.

🏠 Why: The piece explores the driving factors and opportunities to provide services to help them achieve it.

🏠 How: It provides a look at the opportunities for outsourcing leaders to partner in a high ROI agreement.

✨TL;DR✨

This expansion was driven by a few factors..

• To expand market presence with a strategic focus on Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Phoenix, Raleigh, and Tampa as there are growing prospective customer bases

• To build trust with local communities

• To increase moat vs competitors with physical presence in the digital age. Caters to disadvantaged folks and those who prefer in person interactions

But what next? And how can an outsourcing expert capitalise?

✨ The 7 Step Engagement Playbook ✨

1. Who are our target audience?

• Who: PNC Bank (U.S.)

• Decision Maker/s to engage:

  • Head of Retail Banking

• Goals:

  • Prioritising expanding their market share

  • Capturing more customers and revenue

  • Diversifying the ways customers can manage finances

  • Caring about low-moderate income communities

Future needs? Take your mind back to the new mansion. Buying a new place is exciting, but with upgrading your residence comes a need for experts…

⚡ The Electricians [Technology and IT]:

• Cybersecurity experts

• IT and software expansion

• Digital banking experts

• Payment advisors

🪠  The Plumbers [Back office]:

• More data to manage

• Higher vol of transaction processing

• Compliance experts

🖌️ The Painters [Customer support]:

• Knows the community deeply

• Can handle multi channel queries (digital and in person)

🏗️ The… well, Builders [Construction]:

• Renovation experts

• Architects

2. Why is now a good time to help them?

Strategic Shift:

PNC are actively prioritising 12 locations to open and renovate their in-person branches.

Now take yourself back to your first house purchase. The walls were bare. Maybe some tiles missing. Leaky roof. Live Laugh Love signs on the wall from a previous owner.

You likely made some calls. You showed some intent to spruce the place up..

And so are PNC with their expansion (after all, they are renovating 100 branches).

#1: They’re hiring. Aggressively. 🛎️

In the past month, PNC posted 280 new jobs on LinkedIn:

• Tellers

• Analysts

• Product managers

• KYC managers

• Software engineers

• Branch managers

• Bankers

• Personal bankers

These roles are perfect for branch, product, market, and operational expansion.

However the in person roles of tellers, branch managers and personal bankers will need to be local, as branches are in person.

This does leave an opportunity for outsourcing firms with remote roles like software engineering, product managers, KYC managers, payment advisors and analysts.

#2: They’ve partnered before. 🤝 

• PNC has 13 partnerships in place with providers of technology and channel services. They’ve also partnered with TCW group this year to deliver new private credit card products to middle market companies - where they tap into credit expertise across both firms. This shows they’re open to collaboration when there is a market opportunity or if they do not possess in house skills needed to run a process.

3. Their needs, and your role to play

Outsourcing leaders are well positioned to help.

The capabilities needed by PNC

• Scalable payment infrastructure

• IT and software expansion

• Secure Cybersecurity controls

• Greater transaction processing

• Product development

• Data analytics

• Risk & compliance monitoring

Business Process Outsourcing opportunities

• Technology: Core system scaling & maintenance with systems / software engineers

• Data: Keeping new branch data in one place and making it easy to understand / usable with business analytics

• Risk Management: Monitoring and managing financial, operational, and market risks due to new expansion and multiple reg requirements of local government

• Product:

  • Research, analysing and developing products based on customer sentiment

  • Marketing the expansion to build trust with communities

• Processes: Payments execution & monitoring, bank reconciliation, cheques processing

4. What does a dream partnership look like?

Here’s an example of what a full outsourcing package could look like..

Consultants:

Who?

• Operating model change experts

• Process scaling experts

• Marketing experts

• Systems consultants

Why?

• New branches and customers = increased customer demand

• Increased customer demand = larger volume of queries and actions to be taken by branch staff, which will result in back office processing teams doing more work.

• This means the processes need to be revised to cater for the 12+ additional locations, so that any edge case queries and surge in volumes do not cause the processes staff follow to break

• Systems also need to be assessed to find out if they can handle increased internal users, data, and usage

• It will also impact the local communities

• Marketing this authentically and with high engagement will keep people happy and accepting of a new local branch in their hometowns

Outsourcing process management: 

Who?

• Payments processing team

• Data & business analysts

• Software engineers

• Product researchers & managers

Why?

• Manage increasing query volumes and maintain / improve customer satisfaction, and to handle rising operational KPIs

• Execute a higher number of payment requests and cheques

• Increased data will need increased oversight to ensure it’s consistent and useful (to help leaders make decisions)

• Systems being scaled will require greater maintenance resource

Outcomes:

• Processes are perfect and new staff can read them in case they get stuck

• Internal systems are ready to handle extra demand

• Payments are processed on time, and controls are in place to spot suspicious activities

• Local communities are excited and feel cared for by an enterprise bank

✨ How I’d position myself ✨

5. A ‘done it before’ builder

Strategic talent partner > standard recruitment. Banks already have huge talent acquisition teams. How do we set apart? With our unique selling points and relevant project experience.

These could be:

🧱 Access to high-quality talent that can start fast

🧱 Talented individuals who are right first time vs endless interviews

🧱 Speed of on-boarding because of training and experience

🧱 Consulting offer to i) hire the right people and ii) make sure the bank’s operating model is tailored for the recruitment they need (training, processes, development).

🧱 Similar companies you have provided outsourcing services to, for similar problems (expansion of business).

Whatever it is that currently sets you apart and builds credibility.

6. A new success metric: unshakeable belief.

The world of vendor / bank partnerships is changing:

A high focus on quality vs random quantity is the USP for outsourcing leaders from now to 2030. But what of the soft, human side of things?

Banks, like all businesses, have real humans working in them. Public news controversy aside, folks in finance largely want to work with exciting individuals with strong values. They’re also acutely aware of the unwanted negative perception created by years of mistrust. See the financial crisis of 2008, and money laundering scandals in years thereafter.

Coming out of the heavy fines and life support period from 2010-2016, banks have slowly begun to rely on outside help (people) more and more.

What does this show? A growing trust that others can help.

Why do banks trust vendors? Social proof. Experience. Lack of internal skill.

My theory is that partnerships will of course continue to have the standard success metrics of revenue, time save, SLAs, incidents, market share, and so on.

But a new metric will enter the fray. A metric that cannot be quantified, so by definition it isn’t a metric - it’s a differentiator.

And that is: unshakeable belief in ones values.

Outsourcing leaders who are clear on their offer, value prop, and vision / mission will be strongly positioned to be the next vendor that banks switch to over the next 5 years.

Why?

Strong values and non negotiables are key difference makers in a saturated market, and when decision makers are solution seeking - this can be the 1% margin that sets you apart.

Outsourcing business owners who have an unwavering belief in the below will do well with community focused banks.

• Appropriate compensation, not underpaying recommended talent

• High quality talent that is as good as or better than local

• Fast on boarding that improves time-to-bum-on-seat

• Consulting and understanding the short and long term talent needs, not just working in a timebound bubble

• Measuring ROI on talent hires, to pivot approach

To stick to the above principles requires effort, both in tangible action, process, and values. I’ve spoken to some outsourcing leaders recently, and the focus has always been on well paid and high quality talent - not quick fixes. This resonated with me (a former banker).

And thus, as many financial leaders look to switch their outstaffing or process outsourcing providers - I believe they will too.

As for PNC bank specifically, they are a community based bank. They’re prioritising engaging local communities in the 12 locations to make it the peoples baby too.

You could replicate this highly engaging approach with a bank like PNC. It shows:

1. You’ve done your homework on their style and;

2. You have a thoughtful, sustainable approach to partnerships. Which they like.

One idea I have for you is to host a LinkedIn webinar on a pain point / interest of theirs, and invite decision makers to it.

I did this in the summer for a client, and got 40+ of their ICPs to attend - which resulted in prospects and a pipeline.

A few other supporting points:

• 80 significant banks outsource payment and admin services

• 30% of Europe banks plan to switch their outsourcing provider in next 5 yrs

Banks want to move from transactional relationships to staffing fully integrated talents that are part of the team. This is to fully distribute new, sought after knowledge..

..and feel safe.

Safe in the confidence venders are around long term. Switching is costly.

🧱 How I’d build trust with PNC. 🧱

I would..

• List the decision makers (Head of Retail, COO, CTO, CCO, any other relevant role).

• Research their LinkedIn to see what they talk about, newsletters they subscribe to, groups they are part of, and events they’re attending.

• Check for mutual connections. If none..

• Look at how they consume content. Do they post videos? Or podcasts? Are they more of a industry report person?

• Engage content for a few weeks, then create an unquestionably valuable asset in the format they enjoy consuming.

• For example: a 10 step guide that solves one of their pains.

• Austin Rief recently posted a perfect example:

Some ideas on what the asset could be:

• Report on local community needs in their new branch locations

• Guide on how to scale a core system

• Deep dive on how a bank expanded their branches in the past

Opportunities abound.

7. Where to find decision makers

Using the above trust building tips, I:

1. Follow and engage content of people I’d love to work with (genuinely)

2. Create content that solves their pains, and;

3. Reach out to them to understand more about their problems

Who to engage in a bank that is expanding their branches?

• Head of Retail Banking (decision maker, accountable for expansion)

• Regional / Local Branch Manager (a good internal champion to persuade decision makers)

• Chief Marketing Officer (decision maker, will care about branding during expansion)

And finally, I’m including the below checklist in every edition of The Source.

How banking decision makers like to be engaged:

✅ Recommendations from existing banking vendors who can’t fill their need

✅ Gartner reports (or any market report with your firms name in it)

✅ Recommendations from third-party recruitment agencies or industry consultants

✅ Engage genuinely with frequent decision maker posts on LinkedIn

✅ Invite them to a webinar / send a personalised Loom (especially for community focused banks!)

✅ Attend an event they are at (virtual) and ask a question after

✅ Produce content that educates and solves their pains

✅ Align the talent acquisition strategy with their strategy

All in all.. be their friend and advisor.

Thanks for reading 🙂 

Want to brainstorm some more? Book a call!