The Interbank case: from the comfort zone to collaborative work

Interbankis the second most profitable bank in Peru, with a growing share in personal credit, vehicles, mortgages, people's deposits and commercial banking. Its differential factor has been to turn each agency into a real financial store in which, by just entering, the customer access a place where all products and services are located, accompanied by agile, close and innovative attention. In addition, in recent years it has carried out a major digital transformation, in addition to managing its projects through agile methodologies.

Taking this into account, the Vice-President for Corporate and Legal Affairs, he sought us to carry out a process of evaluation and diagnosis of his activities and functions of knowledge management. They also expressed the need to unify management methodologies and to identify opportunities for cross-sectional knowledge management within the team, as they understood the meaning and priority of the digital transformation of the industry for them.

"We had a vacuum in the information we collected, as it was not easily accessible to the entire team. When people left the bank, all knowledge was lost, for it was with them. The important information was not being shared and this had an impact on our response times, as it was our turn to do a work that had already been done before., " Sandra Sofia Market, Head of Legal Solutions, Digital Projects and Digital Transformation.   

"It took us a long time to find the precedents, Success Stories or stories that could be replicated to generate predictability in the formation of legal opinions. We were frustrated because we knew we had a problem, but we couldn't face it and focus on it. We lacked the time, the people to do it and the vision to achieve it. ", manifest Claudia Paniagüe - Legal Advisory Manager, Products and Contracts- since they had various sources of data, information and knowledge, both tacit and explicit. Similarly, they did not have unified policies, practices and processes to manage information in a coordinated manner, or to safeguard their access and control. "This is why we are looking for AlsterOne of the advantages of his work is that, thanks to his methodology and his multidisciplinary team, which includes lawyers and professionals from other branches, they allowed us to quantify and identify the gaps we had as a team, to make the diagnosis of the situation, to define the ideal state and to build a strategy. "  

Once we start our consulting project, we find several points to resolve, quite common to legal management. First, the culture of silos that hindered the adoption and implementation of knowledge management and transformation initiatives. The various units of the Vice-President also operated independently from each other. Each member had its own working systems and information storage criteria.

For this reason, our strategy was to guide the team to a culture of collaborative work and efficiency, which would create synergies among the members, leveraged in an optimized distribution of activities. To do this, we have several workshops for identifying pain, raising information, related to processes, documents, decision-making, etc. We also identify knowledge assets and, above all, their contribution to the generation of value for Interbank. This is how we came to our first milestone: the definition of the state the Vice-President wanted to reach, along with the gaps and opportunities to work.

“What I liked about working with Alster was that not only did they guide us on the theme of the centralized repository with taxonomy, rules and templates, but they also identified other factors that are equally important for the purpose of working in knowledge management. This is from the growth of knowledge in people and the identification of processes that can be digitized or managed in a different way. But above all, they showed us that a medular theme is required for it to work and this is the change of culture."Sandra Sofia Mercado tells us.

The final product delivered to Interbank was the Knowledge Management Strategy 2022-2023with a team-built vision: “To make the capture, distribution and reuse of information and knowledge part of our way of doing things to achieve outstanding results. "It also had four key objectives:

• Implement and adopt a unique and integrated central repository with organizational processes and systems.
• Define a common taxonomy and metadata system between areas.
• Process optimization with the use of knowledge bases and self-service tools.
• To generate spaces for the exchange of knowledge and learning on issues aimed at responding to the challenges of digital transformation.

“The work was long and hard, but very rewarding. We're very happy. I keep my strategy in print and in view, to have it as a road map in my daily management. We have made progress in some of the initiatives, such as the development of a culture of collaboration and in identifying processes that can be automated with innovation and technology teams."he tells us Claudia Paniagüe.  

The collaboration and exchange of knowledge and learning were set up as the axes of the culture of Vice-President for Corporate and Legal Affairs of Interbankas well as the alignment of people, processes and technology to manage information and knowledge. Similarly, and in order to manage knowledge efficiently, the need to have the data available to all to make better decisions and without "reinventing the wheel" in each case was established. In addition, lawyers were sought to focus on high-value activities, responding to frequent, low-risk questions and consultations to business areas, through knowledge bases and self-service tools.

“Based on the recommendations of the AlsterWe build smaller forums where experiences and best practices are discussed in monthly sessions, to share with the entire team of the Vice-President. In addition, in the culture component we are working on the new skills to be developed by the bank's lawyers. The legal part is a basis that every lawyer has to have, but there are also all the other skills, just as relevant, such as soft skills, agility, digital mentality, etc. Having identified our needs during the project we designed Digital Law Academy, hand in hand with UCIC, the corporate university of Intercorp. There are 24 courses in total and there are already part of the team that is advanced in more than 50% of them. We proposed to build a more complete profile of the lawyers who accompany the bank to the fulfilment of its purpose., " Sandra Sofia Mercado.   

Finally, the strategy established results expected by the effort and work in knowledge management. The Vice-President hopes to become a team that provides robust solutions, thanks to collaborative learning, based on trust and empathy, as well as to be part of the strategic projects and processes of Interbank, adding value from data-based knowledge and risk management. And the best: the above also expect it to result in balance / balance benefits between personal and working life, through the efficient distribution of time and workload.

“We were in a comfort zone. And although there is a way to go, we want to keep changing and to keep training to change our way of working. ", Claudia Paniagüe. 

Finally,Zelma Acosta - Blondewho leads the Vice-President of the Corporate and Legal Affairs of Interbank He told us his perception:"I am lucky to lead a high-performance team that is characterized by its ability to learn in collaborative environments and always challenge itself to innovate. Lawyers that do not look like lawyers, focused on the needs of our customers, we are characterized by being allies in the design, evaluation and execution of our products and services to accompany Peruvians to fulfill their dreams, today. The Knowledge Management Strategy 2022-2023 will allow us to optimize and improve our service model. " 

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