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57 of what activities they view as core to their culture and business objectives. ey must also determine whether investing capital to develop proprietary tools regarding these activities is the best way to achieve their objectives. It is equally important to recognize activities that are necessary to perform as a servicer, but do not meet the standard of a core business value or objective. For example, one company may view marketing to customers as a core strength and a significant differentiator in their ability to deliver results. is company could then determine that all customer-related documents (i.e., billing statements) are a key platform they want to build, innovate, and maintain. Conversely, another company may view customer-related documents as a commodity, and determine to use a third-party provider. One of the first key steps in the development of a Greenfield Playbook is to map these types of decisions into your technology buildout. Not only will this exercise serve you well during the buildout phase, but it will also serve as a guidepost for future proprietary technology investments. In addition, it can help define your third- party solutions landscape—which, in turn, will lead you to develop meaningful business partnerships. ere's also a value-add in bridging marketing and cross-selling conversations and blending them together to create the optimum consumer experience. Using communication touchpoints through digital technologies— websites, emails, phones, text messages, and chat—can provide great opportunities for servicers to enhance their interactions with customers. Servicers also need people who can service mortgage customers, offer new mortgage products, as well as other services and products, and do it smoothly and cost- effectively. However, such an omnichannel approach also increases the technology complexity for servicers. Companies that are just beginning to build a servicing business will likely find it easier to design such solutions from scratch than if they'd been operating as a servicer for years. Meanwhile, existing servicers migrating to this new state must rewrite their policies and procedures, recode systems, rebuild workflows, and perhaps hire different skill sets. It is a significant change that can challenge an organization's effectiveness at change management while still delivering on the value proposition, particularly at a comparable cost. HERE'S THE SILVER LINING Hiring the right leadership team to build a servicing operation is its own work and demands much more than mortgage experience alone. It requires project managers, technical writers for policies and procedures, and workflow specialists to document all the processes, job aids, desktop reference guides, training materials, job descriptions, and the job duties and responsibilities for every job for hundreds of employees. All of this must be done quickly, correctly, and at the lowest cost possible. e potential problems quickly become evident. How should the bandwidth of the leadership team be managed? Are those on the leadership team also great project managers, technical writers, workflow documenters, etc.? Even if they are, is having the leadership team do these things really their highest and best use? Often, the wise course of action is to have a group of people to support the leadership team, manage projects, and translate their expert knowledge into usable, trainable processes. You might well determine that these types of resources are only necessary for the build- out phase of the operation and involve no meaningful, long-term work with a servicing platform. Either way, as a business, you must decide whether to hire these resources directly or go into the marketplace and find providers who can supplement your leadership team for the build-out phase. e silver lining behind the Greenfield Playbook is that it creates a symphony of different parts and pieces that flow together to form a unique composition within a digital mortgage servicing operation. It also opens up outside resources, such as outsourced staff, to ensure a servicer has the right staff with specific job duties and responsibilities in place. Ideally, the Playbook will include partnering with a company that has an excellent global recruiting engine for the U.S. mortgage market that allows them to do complicated implementations for clients across the globe, quickly and cost-effectively. RISK, REWARDS, AND ROI Mortgage executives who have traditionally originated loans may not have liked the risk profile of a mortgage servicing operation. It's complicated, it's risky, and the money generated by servicing loans is interesting but not overwhelmingly compelling on the face of it. Of course, if you are not sure you want to be a mortgage servicer, there are many companies that will service your loans for you. However, if you are certain that you want to cultivate your brand with your mortgage customers, then you must take care to understand how a third-party servicer will best allow you to achieve your brand loyalty and customer loyalty objectives as well as your cross-sell and new mortgage origination goals. Owning a customer for the entire lifecycle of their mortgage—whether it's five years or more—gives companies control over their vision of branding, customer loyalty, and marketing as well as deepens relationships, all of which results in a more diversified income strategy at higher margins. When you add in the significantly lower cost of origination for an existing customer and the benefits to sell existing customers on other products and services, companies are now seeing a much more compelling case to build a servicing business with the Greenfield Playbook. Stephen Staid is EVP of Mortgage Practice Strategy for Sourcepoint, responsible for expanding the company's market-leading mortgage solutions, along with leading its "Digital First, Digital Now" growth strategy. Before joining Sourcepoint, Staid was with Gateway First Bank, where he was Chief Servicing Officer. In addition, Staid has held executive leadership roles at PHH, Bank of America, Lehman Brothers, and other multinational mortgage lending corporations.