BACS to the future
The rebranding of a national institution
David Sear
16th February 2006
Begin at the beginning
What is your business and what are your
capabilities?
The Banker’s Automated Clearing Service
36 years of operation as the ‘back
office’ processor of the UK
economy
• Mutual governance structure
– Owned by 12 major banking institutions
• Old banking culture
• Run by ex-bankers
• ‘Not for profit’
A critical function in the payments process
All Direct Debits and over 90% of UK salaries
The UK’s
Automated
Clearing
House
By the end of 2005, over 90% of state benefits and pensions will be paid via our
technology platform - now a key part of the critical national infrastructure.
Building on a long history of volume growth and
service developments
BACSTEL-IP TODDASO4
5,000 4
TODDASO
4,500 3.5
Occasional DD
4,000 Faster time to first
collection 3
Item price (p)
3,500
PDD
Volume (m)
Automation of DD instructions 2.5
3,000 Automated advice of wrong
accounts
2,500 2
Automation of DD amendments and cancellations
2,000 Automated return of unpaid DCs
1.5
1,500 Automated
return of unpaid 1
1,000 DDs
BACSTEL 0.5
500
0 0
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19
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Direct Debit Standing Orders Direct Credit Item Price
Understanding your environment
Creating the strategic context
Strategic drivers
Drive to faster clearing cycles
• OFT ‘task force’
• Internet banking growth
• International standards
Rapidly increasing volumes
• £100m investment to replace legacy systems
• Leading edge secure internet input
• Hugely scalable payments engine
Changing needs in the market
• New markets, new uses of electronic payments
– Electronic billing, mobile payments
Competition - domestic and international
• Regulation ends 36 years of sole supply - the processing company no longer
owns the BACS brand
• Move towards ‘Single European Payments Area’
The final frontier
27 domestic clearing houses in Europe
The EU has mandated that by 2010 there will be a
‘Single Euro(pean) Payments Area’ (SEPA)
Page 8
Strategic framework
Key strategic objectives:
1. Be commercial ‘for profit’
2. Diversify: double revenue by
2009
3. Geographically expand: 2
additional markets by 2009
Integrated marketing to communicate vision and
support business development
All of Voca’s marketing has a key objective and
target audience considered within the branding
whole
CORPORATE IDENTITY
Relationships – UK
Additional
& International Joint Ventures
Services
banks, Ventures
Internal communications
Research strategy
Web strategy
New products and propositions
CRM project
Corporate Social Responsibility
Cross functional working
Deal with perceptions
The good, the bad and the downright ugly
A branding journey - 2004
Identify our starting point – good and bad news
Brand Awareness for BACS was almost a universal awareness when prompted – 99%
93% would recommend BACS & 92% had confidence in the company
Brand attributes In touch with customer needs 77%
Trusted 97% Confidence in staff 75%
Efficient 96% Easy to deal with staff 67%
Secure 96% Always striving to improve 63%
Proven / Capable 94% Staff that pay attention to what I say 64%
Experienced 93% Staff take responsibility for problems 59%
Makes me feel valued as a customer 52%
Building a B2B corporate profile through PR
It was important to educate our target audiences that BACS Limited was more than
just a product.
Finding a new name for the company
Research survey on prospect names
SERVICE
FOCUSED
BUSINESS
Test 4
Test 3
? Test 2
PRODUCT
FOCUSED
BUSINESS
PROVEN LEADING
APPROACH EDGE
Finding a new name for the company
Brand Values
Trusted: Respected,proven, reliable, certainty, transparent, experienced
Robust: Secure, safe, resilient, global capability, unparalleled scalability
Knowledgeable: Expertise, experience, insight, understanding, informed, smart
_______________________________________________________________
Agile: Dynamic, attuned to market,customer-responsive,fast moving
Progressive: Enterprising, leading innovators,commercial, visionary, best
technology, learning and developing
Passionate: A people business, fierce pride in every job, commitment, friendly,
energetic, passion to achieve our goals
Why did Voca win?
Latin - ‘call’ call down funds
Simple, clear and explainable
Is international in feel, European and
implies speed
Clear links to communication
There is very little ‘noise’ from similar
sounding names in our sector
‘.CO.UK./ .NET/ .COM’ domain names
available
Available, registrable and explainable asset with a positive
response from internal and external audiences
Take the people with you
‘Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember,
involve me and I understand’
Marketing tools determined by target audience
Customers - 12
Larger Domestic/
450 Staff Retail Banks
Domestic payments industry
Over 100,000
Corporate Shareholders- 12
Media and Larger Domestic/
Customers using
influencers Retail Banks
BACS payments
European
banking International
influencers Banks
International payments industry
Target audiences have key concerns and
areas of interest
Audience Concern or interest Marketing strategy
Future - change and
Staff Engagement
business growth
Tailored reporting
Banking customers Transaction cost and reliability
and discussion forum
Pre-briefings and
Shareholders Business growth and revenue
involvement
Payment products and corporate
Media PR and thought leadership
innovation
Direct Mail, branding
Corporate customers Payment products and efficiency
and productisation
International Lobbying and thought
SEPA, products and costs
influencers leadership, conferences
OneVu
Voca’s first joint venture
An easily integrated system for online bill
presentment and payment available to
consumers through their secure online banking
facility.
• Partnering with US online billing behemoth
CheckFree
• Leveraging bank relationships to sign up HSBC
and LTSB
• Market research indicates 24% of banking
customers would use the service
Digital Payments
A joint venture with fraud specialists Retail Decisions (ReD) and mobile technology
experts Mi-Pay the company promotes new media payments.
• First customer Carphone Warehouse will leverage the Direct Debit model for mobile
payments
Implementation - Internal involvement
Manager’s conference – creating advocates
Brand involvement question Score prior to event
and following
I understand how living the brand 7.1 9.4
values will help us achieve our
business plan.
I feel involved. 6.8 9.7
I know what actions I need to take 5.7 9.1
personally.
I understand what we are changing and 7.8 9.6
when and what we're building on.
Implementation - Internal involvement
Staff survey and changes in language
Top 10 words used to describe Top 10 words used to describe
‘BACS’ – Nov 2004 ‘Voca’ – June 2005
1. Reliable 1. Ambitious
2. Professional 2. Reliable
3. Ambitious 3. Professional
4. Changing 4. Progressive
5. Secure 5. Changing
6. Committed 6. Robust
7. Trusted 7. Trusted
8. Innovative 8. Innovative
9 Optimistic 9 Knowledgeable
10. Trustworthy
10. Agile
• 5 of the 6 values (passionate missing) feature in the top 10 for ‘Voca’
Email campaign & ‘All about brand’ website
Page 25
Target audiences – one year on
Audience Concern or interest Today........
Future - change and
Staff Fully engaged
business growth
Tailored reporting
Banking customers Transaction cost and reliability
and discussion forum
Good although perceptions of
Shareholders Business growth and revenue
Voca emergence are mixed
Mixed – understanding of Voca
Payment products and corporate strategy is inconsistent - (“I
Media
innovation only know Voca as a bank
clearing system”)
FTSE 350 – measured @ 9%
Corporate customers Payment products and efficiency
awareness
Good- as demonstrated through
International influencers SEPA, products and costs SIBOS coverage:”leaders in the
PEACH race”
Voca take home pay index
Launched November 2005
Using your assets
Integrated across all media
Page 28
….and evolving your assets
Page 29
Key learnings
Re-branding a national institution
• Proceed with caution
– People have emotional commitments to the past
– Your people will be your strongest advocates and (potentially) your
greatest critics
• Understand your capabilities
– Brand values must reflect
• Respond to the strategic context
• Understand your audiences
• Listen to your people & involve them
• Be patient
• Take the past with you
Sell it how it is