It's time for me to get back into it.

International Paperless Statementing

This was my first big International Card project, and it felt like I was being caught up in a tornado. But digging into the intricacies’ of our international business and systems to gain control was a thrilling ride.

The day I started my job with the International Card group, I inherited a portfolio of about 6-7 projects which had all kicked off, and Paperless Statementing was the biggest and most complex.  The project involved replicating a US based paperless system and adapting it to work in 14 other countries. 

I was new to the Card business, new to International, and for the first 8 weeks was trying to do my London job from Minneapolis part time and my old job part time.  In the first week, my experienced manager leading the project left. The project had kicked off about 2 months before I joined and was already falling behind  schedule and over budget.

The core issue was many of the 14 countries had unexpected requirements or deeply held opinions about how the International version should be built.  I jumped into deciphering between genuine needs vs. opinions.   With so many stakeholders, it seemed impossible to gain consensus on moving forward, yet each new variance added complexity, time, and costs. 

Finally I met with my new leader and advised that despite best efforts the only way to get moving forward was for me to make the hard decisions.  Many of the market stakeholders may be unhappy, but if they wanted they could withdraw from the project and perhaps there would be more funding next year.  I got the green light.

I communicated my decisions on all the open issues, accommodating some flexibility where needed and making hard decisions on all the others.  There was considerable pushback for a week or two, but in the end not one of the markets chose to withdraw from the project.

My technology partners welcomed the decisiveness and reforecasted the budget and timing.  I secured the extra $500k from the primary sponsor who also appreciated the decisiveness.  The project got on track, and launched on time and budget.  And with a new manager on board and trained up, I was able to focus on other projects in my portfolio. 

The International division was spending in excess of $60mm each year on paper, ink, and stamps so mail statements.  Each 10% of Cardmembers going paperless would save the division $6mm annually.  This project and the following marketing efforts had a very high ROI for the division.