SCOPE OF ENGAGEMENT
Though COVID19 significantly impacted the United States economy as a whole, the resulting economic downturn was particularly devastating to small businesses. With government intervention to help struggling businesses, many banks added Small Business Administration (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) Loans to their portfolio of products.
The magnitude of the nationwide crisis demanded swift and immediate reaction and left no time for the usual carefully thought out build of processes and procedures to support a new product. One such organization called on BASG to help.
THE SOLUTION
The directive was to build and track a quick SBA lending response to support SBA PPP loans. Working swiftly to respond, BASG provided Consultants skilled in process development, workflow creation and with significant experience in banking.
Their initial emphasis was on gathering requirements from client customers and internal staff and quickly getting up to speed on ever changing SBA PPP guidelines. Collaborating with internal resources, they created processes, workflow guidelines and informational FAQs and communications documents.
The goals were to create a system that worked. And, as important, to create a mechanism for sharing timely information with the somewhat beleaguered staff who shouldered responsibility for understanding the newly initiated loan program and efficiently and compassionately sharing that information with the small business community.
THE RESULT
The work of the BASG Consultants addressed the Bank’s need for internal processes and workflows to transition to an effective SBA PPP program. At the same time, it also helped to give the Bank’s clients confidence that their needs were understood, the responding Team was up to the task, and they were in good hands during this stressful time. When the second round of PPP loans was announced and administrated, the Bank was in a much better position to handle the massive response.