1) You have to comprehend the real conditions of the environment that the banks operate. In particular,  define the process (in case there are more than one then revise the literature of Network DEA), also define the inputs and the outputs etc.

2) Think thoroughly of what you want to do and possible ways to accomplish it.

3) Then revise the literature in order to find an approach close to your needs.

4) Understand the approach that you select and apply it to your case study.

5) Try to develop a new approach

a) If you cannot find something that meets your needs or

b) if you have detected some defects/drawbacks to the other approaches or

c) if you can extend and build on an existing one or

d) If you have a novel idea that will make a remarkable improvement to the topic.

There are plenty of models and too many approaches and case studies. Therefore, focus to your needs and your target.

Concerning the software, it depends to the model that you are going to use.

DEAP is a free software available in the below link...

http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/cepa/deap.php

Even you can do that analysis in Excel if you have installed 'Solver'

dear Krishna,

a very good survey of techniques and methods is provided by MD Fethi, F Pasiouras

European Journal of Operational Research 204 (2), 189-198. A less thorough, but more recent, survey, can be found in http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/sefcsefwp/338.htm.

Software-wise, it is a good idea to have a look into the Benchmarking package for R.

Best,

S.

--

Webpage: http://www.unisa.it/docenti/sergiopietrodestefanis/index;

Repec Papers: http://econpapers.repec.org/RAS/pde148.htm;

SSRN Papers: http://ssrn.com/author=451445

Dear Professors,

Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions.

regards

You can find the answer to your question in the papers listed below. 

If you are new in the area the papers in my book with Pat Harker EFFICIENCY OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS, Cambridge University Press, will give you a good introduction.

(Make sure you get hold of the published version of the papers, not the working papers that may be floating in the Web).

Good luck!

Stavros

Article Efficiency, Profitability and Quality of Banking Services

Article Using data envelopment analysis for costing bank products

Article Benchmarks of the Efficiency of Bank Branches

I found MATLAB to be the most flexible package. It does not have a DEA routine, but it does have a linear programming routine. You can learn how to programme MATLAB quite easily and then you can create any DEA routine that you like; and so you are not constrained by the standard DEA procedures in most popular software.

As a starter I took the simple CCR example in Tim Coelli's introduction to DEAP. I created my code in MATLAB and then used the data provided by Coelli. My routine gave the same answer as he presented in his paper, so I then knew that my programming was accurate. I then moved on from the basic CCR to create Free Disposal Hull Range Adjusted Measure(FDH RAM) approach.

Once you understand MATLAB and are confident in programming, the options are limitless.

Thank you all

Regarding software, I have worked with both LINGO and Mathematica. LINGO has in its archive some DEA models programmed, which can be easily modified. Mathematica is an excellent package that does everything, but you need to do some simple programming for DEA.

I upload DEAwithCrossEfficient.pdf that is one of first chapter of DEA with CCR and Inverted DEA models and crossEficient published from Amazon.

I explain how to build LINGO SEts model and DEA.

Hope this document will serve the purpose

Chapter Data Envelopment Analysis