Bank branch sales evaluation using extended value efficiency analysis

•Value efficiency analysis is extended.•Finnish bank branch sales are analyzed in collaboration with the bank management.•The bank has already used the study to support its decisions.

This article results from our collaborative project with a Finnish bank aiming to evaluate the sales performance of bank branches. The management wishes to evaluate the branches’ ability to generate profit, which rules out the pure technical efficiency considerations. The branches operate in heterogeneous environments. We deal with the heterogeneity by subdividing the branches according to the bank specification into overlapping clusters and analyze each cluster separately. The prices of the branch outputs are hard to assess as the results from the sales efforts can only be observed with long delays. We employ benchmark units similarly as in value efficiency analysis (VEA). However, we extend VEA in two ways. First, in standard VEA the benchmark unit is assumed to yield the maximum profit among the set of feasible technologies; instead, our benchmark technology may or may not be in the feasible set. Second, we consider efficiency tests employing a benchmark with respect to both profit and return. We propose a solution strategy for these extensions. The bank uses the study to support decisions concerning new branches, changes in the operations of inefficient branches, and actions aiming to more flexible deployment of the staff.