Regional Brokerage Firm
Trading operations and client management teams reduced approval cycles by eliminating coordination layers that slowed decision velocity, achieving 65% coordination overhead reduction.
Organization Profile
A regional brokerage with 120 employees across trading, client management, operations, and support functions. The firm had experienced rapid growth over 5 years, tripling in size, but organizational structure hadn't evolved with the growth.
Trading operations suffered from slow decision velocity. Traders couldn't act on market opportunities because approval processes required input from multiple stakeholders. Client management teams were frustrated by delays in addressing client requests and opportunities.
The Hidden Coordination Tax
Where Coordination Overhead Was Hidden
- Trade Authorization: A trader could identify an opportunity, but executing required approval from Risk, Compliance, and Operations. Each step delayed execution by half a day.
- Client Issue Resolution: A client management issue that should have taken 2 hours to resolve required input from 4 different departments, stretching resolution to 3 days.
- Cross-departmental Meetings: 8-10 meetings per week just for departments to stay aligned on decisions they were making independently.
- Overlapping Reviews: Risk reviewed compliance requirements independently, Compliance reviewed risk requirements independently. Duplicative work consuming hours per week.
- Unclear Authority: Nobody was clear on who had authority to make what decisions, so everything escalated.
- Process Documentation: Keeping documentation of decisions in sync consumed significant time when same information needed in multiple systems.
The Real Cost
At an average loaded cost of $150K per professional, 65% coordination overhead meant approximately $97.5K of annual value per person spent on coordination rather than trading or client service work.
With 120 employees, coordination overhead was consuming $3.72M annually. The organization calculated that 35% of this overhead could be eliminated—yielding $152K in recoverable annual capacity plus improved responsiveness to market conditions and client needs.
Engagement Phases
Key Outcomes
Quantifiable Results
- 65% reduction in coordination overhead: From 3.72M hours annually to 1.30M hours
- $152K annual time savings: Recoverable capacity invested in revenue-generating activities
- Approval cycles reduced by 75%: Trade authorization reduced from 4 hours to 1 hour
- Client issue resolution cut by 60%: From 3 days to 1.2 days average
- Meeting load reduced by 70%: From 8-10 meetings/week to 2-3 cross-functional meetings
Business Outcomes
- Traders could now execute time-sensitive opportunities with minimal approval friction
- Client satisfaction scores improved 22 points due to faster resolution times
- Risk improved as traders no longer bypassed controls out of frustration with slow approval
- Senior management recovered 8+ hours/week previously spent in coordination meetings
- Competitive position strengthened—ability to act faster than competitors gave market edge
- Recruitment and retention improved—professionals preferred clearer decision authorities
Client Perspective
"We grew fast, and somewhere along the way we created this massive coordination machine that was actually preventing us from serving clients. We thought the answer was better processes, but what we really needed was clearer authority and less process. That's the counterintuitive part—we had to simplify to serve better. Now traders trust they can make decisions, and that trust actually made everyone safer because it changed the culture from rule-following to judgment-based decision making."
— Managing Director, Regional Brokerage
Are slow approval cycles and meeting overload limiting your organization's speed?
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