Increasing Efficiency with Automation

How many pages do you print in a day? 20? 50? 250? Now, multiply that by almost 300 employees, and you can see how quickly a small expense, such as a sheet of paper, can add up to a major annual cost. This is just one example of a wasteful action that can accumulate when scaled across an organization.

This is why relentless improvement is one of our core values here at First State Bank. One of my biggest goals this year (and every year going forward) will be to pursue automation wherever we can, and process improvement in areas we can’t. Technology is constantly evolving, and First State Bank will be right there along with it.

Take our Interactive Teller Machines, for example. In such a fast-paced world, our customers needed a quick way to self-service any transaction. And with the pandemic moving in, we had to accelerate plans to strategically deploy a number of ITMs in our markets for greater reach and service.

At our 2021 Strategy Retreat, automation was a major topic, as we made the decision that we could and should apply automation to every level of the organization. We tasked our team members with being conscious of their day-to-day activities and asking the question “why?” whenever they perform a task that seems to be redundant or slow. If the answer to that question is “because that’s how we’ve always done it,” then you’ve probably found a great opportunity for improvement!

This process of automation will enable us to not only improve First State Bank’s Efficiency Ratio but will help us continue to grow and add locations while maintaining our standards for customer service and quick response.

The Efficiency Ratio is an important performance metric in banks because it essentially tells you how much the bank spends to earn $1 of revenue (Expenses/Revenues). First State Bank’s Efficiency Ratio is around 0.74 but the industry standard is to be below 0.50. This means FSB spends significantly more to earn a dollar than the rest of the industry. This year, our goal is to improve our process and increase revenue without increasing expenses. This will be a great start in moving our efficiency ratio toward industry averages and better!