2. Do you think the workforce optimization project at NCBJ is a high-payoff project? Why? National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (NCBJ) launched a project to consolidate its back-office systems and processes in 2003. By the end of 2004, the bank had trimmed approximately 150 full-time equivalents (FTEs), primarily as a result of centralizing or outsourcing back-office tasks. Nevertheless,

“we did not feel we were fully leveraging our US$52 million investment,” Courtney Campbell, the company’s general manager of retail banking, reported. “Many branches were complaining that they did not have enough staff to deliver what they’d delivered before,” particularly in the crucial areas of service and sales (Horwitt 2006). This was a serious problem, especially given that a central purpose of the consolidation effort was to free up branch employees to focus more on the customer.