Our CEO has challenged us to come up with ways to decrease costs & increase revenues. I am looking for something creative that no one else would come up with. Do you guys have any ideas?? Thanks!!

Look for things that are being done '...because we always did it that way'. Sometimes this is an indication that it was done that way before technology offered an alternative.

How many reports are still being printed and given to each officer whether they need them or not; and which could be delivered elecronically to their desktop if they do need it?

Ditto the packet of information your board receives in advance of their meetings (or do you plop it down in front of them when they sit down?). Identify ways to make that delivery electronic and secure, and you could save not only trees but postage and printing time.

Also, don't be afraid to ask the people who are actually doing the work for their comments and suggestions. Sometimes the ones closest to the work know what seems useful and what doesn't.

After getting feedback from one of the forums here, we stopped checking the obitiuaries of the local paper for deceased parties. It didn't serve a useful purpose and the new accounts staff were relieved (of course this frees their time for more important tasks).

We're using LaserPro and DepositPro more than we had in the past to alleviate the extra typing that was associated with loan documents. Perhaps ask your vendor to help you with a review of how you use those types of products and how you could be using them more effectively or efficiently.

We're also training the new accounts staff to do more cross-selling. Perhaps someone just opened a large deposit account; ask them what other services we can offer to them. Tell them what other products and services you offfer, don't let them find out by having to read through a mess of papers.

I recall reading a sales-related book that indicated business loss out by not asking the customer for their business. While you've got them seated across from you, ask if they've considered an IRA or CD or loan.

Ban meetings.

We had a company wide contest so that employees could submit ideas directly to the internal auditor (who was head of the committee). folks whose ideas were used received some sort of prize but I can't remember what it was - may 1/2 a day off? The one whose idea saved the most money received a bigger prize.

This resulted in many ideas submitted and actually implemented:

got rid of company cars - made all executive staff buy their own car

was one biggie that was implemented as a result. folks were more likely to submit that suggestion to the IA instead of the CEO who would have to give up his car.

Thanks for all of your suggestions!! I definitely have some starting places!

I recently had an associate ask me if there were any restrictions on what banks could 'sell'. When I asked why he wanted to know, he said that since we had all this wasted space in our lobby, why didn't we open up a 'convenience store' to sell drinks, milk, bread, etc. to our customers and make some money. Had I been eating or drinking I would have choked.

In the last two years we have saved over $400,000 by renegotiating vendor contracts. Since some of these contracts still run for several years we will benefit from the renegotiation for several years on top of the first year savings.
Also in discussion with the landlords on branches we lease – if you want us to stay – you need to give us rent concessions. For buildings we own we are looking at excess capacity to see if there is protental to subdivide and rent out space.
Saving about $30,000 (paper and postage) a year by turning off notices that are not required by regulation.
Eliminated renting plants for the offices ($40,000 annually). Look at your accounts payable and see if you can identify duplicate or unnecessary services.
Look at fee income – what % of fees are waived? We set a tolerance for waiving or refunding fees – any area that exceeds it must document to mgmt the business reason for it.
Look at your thermostats – can they be programmed for off hours where the temp doesn’t have to be as hot or cool as during working hours. Also look at your phone lines – are you paying for lines not in use?
Look at energy consolidation companies to save $$.
Look at staffing levels – e.g loan activity is significantly less than a few years ago, have you adjusted your staffing accordingly. If you don’t want to do staff reductions, at least look to not replace people when they leave – we have been very successful with this. Put a freeze on hiring and review job descriptions to see if responsibilities can be combined.

While I laughed at this, I think a good suggestion regarding meetings would be to use Web meetings or telephone conference. We saved $1,000s just from not having to reimburse employees for mileage traveling from one branch to the branch having the meeting. HTH!