NAB – Growth and Development

Discuss about the Strategic Development for Regional Energy Planning.

Strategic development refers to the creation and application of any company’s goals and mission statements. This is done by effectively utilizing the work environment and the resources of the company, in order to enable effective allocation of resources, to aid their effective implementation. As strategic management is a dynamic process, constant monitoring and feedback is essential, in order to enable the companies achieve their vision. Ideally, strategic management has two related processes – formulation, which involves analyzing the environment, the resources, and setting up goals for the organization; and implementation, which involves mobilization of the resources in achieving the goal. Together, the vision of the organization would be effectively achieved.

This paper focuses on the strategic development performed by the National Australia Bank (NAB), the development and growth of the organisation from its beginnings to the present, the business practices that company has pursued over the years, the general and specific environmental analysis for the involvement of the organisation, and the culture or leadership style within the organisation.

The National Australia Bank is one of the largest banking institutions in Australia, and an important organization of global repute. Established in 1982, it has over 30 years of financial ups and downs. The vision statement of the bank is “to create more of what matters for people, communities and the economy – a belief that motivates our people to do the right thing, show passion for customers, demonstrate a will to win, be bold and show respect for people.” To achieve this vision, the strategies implemented by the organization have constantly evolved over the years (National Australia Bank Limited, 2016).

Upon establishment, the initial goals and strategies were focused on expansion of trade relations, where in it expanded its financial bases in many countries such as the United States of America, China, India, Malaysia, Korea, Greece, etc. However, the organization fell in bad times after facing allegations of many fraud cases, and post 2009, the strategies were modified to focus on change in reputation, wealth management, and increasing in market share (McConnell, 2016). Today, strategic development plays a vital role in the business process of NAB, and the entire process is customer oriented. There are five strategy teams – Personal Banking, Business Banking, Wealth, Product and Markets and Enterprise Services and Transformation. The organization also has separate strategy for its corporate social activities, managing environmental and social issues, including becoming a member of the UN Global Compact, United Nations Environment Statement for Financial Institutions, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Sustainable Business Council, United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles, etc.

Even though the NAB has been one among Australia’s largest banks, it has had its own share of controversies. Two of the controversies, namely the tax evasion and customer overcharging issue, and the foreign currency trader staff fraud, the strategies which were criticised, and the stakeholders that initiated the criticisms are discussed below

The tax evasion and customer overcharging fraud: This controversy came to the fore in the early 2000’s, wherein the Irish subsidiary of NAB, the National Irish Bank (NIB) was found guilty of allegedly overcharging their customers (White, 2004). It was also found guilty in evading the customary taxes prior to 1998; by maintain fake and fictious accounts. This was exposed by the Irish High Court, where the judge Justice Peter Kelly ruled the bank guilty. Subsequently, nine officers of the managerial designation were evicted from duty, and debarred from service in any organization. The strategy that was misused, or not heeded to, was customer trust and relations. One of the main people who criticized this was Justice Kelly, who stated that this practice shook the very edifice of banking, which is trust (World Scientific, 2016).

Criticism in Practice

The foreign currency trader staff fraud: This controversy too came to the fore in the early 2000’s, where it was found that unauthorized spot trades using foreign currency had been made, and the losses incurred had been covered up, where in the total losses incurred came around 360 Million Australian Dollar (Geevarghese, 2011). This was exposed by investigations conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers. The strategy that had failed here was the lack of proper knowledge and experience in the Business banking, undercapitalization of traders, and miscalculated bets against the US Dollar (Florey, 2012).

Though the people found guilty in both cases, and many other cases were arrested, the black spot on the bank’s reputation would leave a sense of mistrust in its customers. It cannot be ignored that the financial down spiral of the bank that followed was due to many people losing trust on it (Turner, 2009).

Environmental analysis is the scrutiny of the external and internal environments, or circumstances in which an organization is placed, in order to assess its performance efficiency. Analyzing the general, specific, external and internal environments for the NAB by various analyses, we can analyze its productivity (Wirtz et al., 2010).

General Environments (PESTEL) analysis: The NAB is situated in Australia, and the analysis is based on the location.

• Political – Liberalist Capitalist Democracy
• Economical – Capitalist economy, predominantly the service sector
• Social /cultural – Cultural diversity, wide acceptance, with branches widespread globally
• Technological – Up to date with the latest technology, and has high amounts of money allocated for the R&D, along with tax rebates
• Ecology (Nature) – abundance in natural resources, impacted by climate change
• Legal– flexible business laws and regulatory measures by the APRA.

• Customers – domestic customers, corporate customers, institutional customers
• Partners – VeriFone Systems
• Industry – Banking, Trade business
• Unions – The Finance Sector Union, The First Union, Unite
• Competitors – HSBC, BNP Paribas, Citibank,
• Suppliers – various business, Government projects

• Process – Customer acquisition and retention
• System – Financial trade
• Employees –management graduates, Financing, accounting and auditing experts
• Management – A team of experts heading theleadership

• Strengths – A powerful name within Australia’s financial and business sector
• Weaknesses – Financial down spiral, loss of reputation due to numerous allegations
• Opportunity – Foreign expansions, catering to diverse customers
• Threats – Financial crisis

The National Australia Bank has a staff and customer friendly work culture, which is framed by the five values, which are:

The passion for customers, where the bank puts the customers first, and resolves any issues affecting the customers.

The will to win, where the management wills to extend itself within its limits to satisfy the customer

Being bold, where the courage to raise questions wherever and whenever needed is developed

Respect for people, where every person entering the bank is treated equally with importance

To do the right thing, even when circumstances make the tasks difficult, in order to enhance customer service.

The research areas that are mainly focused on are customer satisfaction and sustaining the ethics of banking. Even though there have been many glitches in the ethical values, the organization still stands by its ethical practice and core values, in order to sustain in the business (Ismail Al-Alawi et al., 2007).

The Chief executive officer or managing director is the seniormost post of an organization, who leads to its development. In NAB, the CEOs who have inspired the employees and influenced on the company’s main strategies and culture are Andrew Thorburn, Cameron Clyne, and Anthony Healy. These people have shaped the culture and the reputation of the bank, by implementing the various theories of leadership. For example, Cameron Clyne had earlier announced that the CEO position of NAB would be single, with him as the lead, thus integrating the group of CEO’s culture (Phillips, 2008). This initiative was taken in order to help easier access to the stakeholders, and to avoid unwanted human resource utilization. By this, Clyne has employed the theory of functional leadership, where there is an integration of team activity, and effective contribution by the leader. Similarly, the other CEO’s too have layed pivotal roles in the running of the organization.

Environmental Analysis

Conclusion

A bank is built on the epitome of trust of its customers, and its growth is directly proportional to the growing trust it enjoys from its stakeholders. The NAB is one of the most powerful banks today, as a result of its trustworthiness. However, many incidents of strategic failures and mismanagements have led to the wavering of the trust on it, which subsequently led to its difficult periods. The environment f Australia is well suited for business capitalization, which the organizations can bank upon. As the stock market is a very volatile entity, care must be taken to invest in areas where losses would be minimal (Guthrie et al., 2006). Going further, the strategies of NAB must be to build a reputation of global acclaim, maintain a healthy competition with its competitors, ensure that controversies do not happen again, and to expand globally to reach the common man. The policies and strategies on environmental conservation must be strengthened, as a safe and healthy environment is essential for safe survival of the human species. With strong ethics and skilled resources under efficient leadership, it is possible to achieve the vision, and thus enable global prosperity.

References

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Geevarghese, N.M., 2011. Shocking Loss of Investor Protection: The Implications of Morrison v. National Australia Bank. Brook. J. Corp. Fin. & Com, 6, p.235.

Guthrie, J., Petty, R. & Ricceri, F., 2006. The voluntary reporting of intellectual capital: Comparing evidence from Hong Kong and Australia. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 7(2), pp.254-71.

Ismail Al-Alawi, A., Yousif Al-Marzooqi, N. & Fraidoon Mohammed, Y.., 2007. Organizational culture and knowledge sharing: critical success factors. Journal of knowledge management, 11(2), pp.22-42.

McConnell, P., 2016. National Australia Bank – 30 years of strategy failure. News. The Conversation.

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Phillips, B., 2008. National Australia Bank’s Group CEO Designate, Cameron Clyne announces integration of the Group and Australian Region CEO roles. News. National Australia Bank Limited.

Terrados, J., Almonacid, G. & Hontoria, L., 2007. Regional energy planning through SWOT analysis and strategic planning tools.: Impact on renewables development. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 11(6), pp.1275-87.

Turner, A., 2009. The Turner Review: A regulatory response to the global banking crisis. Financial Services Authority.

White, D., 2004. Irish Bank fined £42m for tax evasion. News. The Telegraph.

Wirtz, B.W., Schilke, O. & Ullrich, S., 2010. Strategic development of business models: implications of the Web 2.0 for creating value on the internet. Long range planning, 43(2), pp.272-90.

World Scientific, 2016. Worldwide Casebook in Marketing Management. World Scientific.