Background of ASB Bank

Discuss about the Organizational changes for corporate sustainability.

The following paper will describe about the different marketing aspects and the impacts of the organizational change on the banking sector in New Zealand, especially focusing on the ASB Bank. It is very important to develop a proper idea about the bank since the organizational culture of this bank will have to be understood. The external environment analysis of this organization will have to be conducted in order to understand the problems they are facing at the moment and what opportunities are ahead of them indeed. The company background of ASB Bank will have to be discussed in this aspect indeed. Therefore, the impacts of the organizational change and the types of changes this company is going through will have to be discussed properly. Other than that, the force field analysis on ASB Bank will have to be done following a proper secondary research. Other details about the bank will have to be discussed in this paper as well. The drivers and resistances for change on ASB bank should be given an overview.

The journey of ASB Bank began in the year 1847 with the name of Auckland Savings Bank (Asb.co.nz, 2018).The parent company of this bank is the Commonwealth Bank which is situated in Australia. The company provides its customers like the banking services, financial services and investment services. The headquarters of this bank is situated in the Auckland. The financial services that ASB bank provides to its customers are like the retail services, business and banking the rural areas, funds management and many other services (Asb.co.nz, 2018) The company is dedicated to provide the customers with the best services all through. They are keen on innovating new procedures that would serve their customers in a better way. They have been awarded with the Award for Financial Services may times in the previous years. The different innovative services that they have produced in the recent years are the focus on internet banking, keeping their branches open all the seven days in the week, provide the banking services to the customers through the mobile phones and many others. They have also been interested in provide their customers with the e-banking statements through emails. This would save the papers and less time consuming as well. They serve different areas in New Zealand (Asb.co.nz, 2018). The organization has almost 5000 employees.

Mission and Vision of ASB Bank

The vision of the company has always been ‘to serve the community: to grow: and to help the kiwis grow.’ (Asb.co.nz, 2018).

The mission of ASB bank has always been to move forward and be dynamic in their approach to the customers. They want to change the mindset of the people about the facts of how they see the banks and how they deal with their money. They want to provide the services to their customers in a way so that they will not just remain like all other banks and be more than that and acquire a place of trust in the customers’ minds. They inspire their customers and they are also inspired by their customers as well (Alvesson, 2012). They want to drive the changes so that they can move forward. They have more than more than 1 million customers as personal, business and rural customers. They are keen on innovation and driving the positive changes for the betterment of the organization (Alvesson, 2012).

ASB bank is run with the divisional management functions as the managers in the different branches run the functions of the concerned (Lunenburg, 2012). It has been found that there are mainly three characters for the divisional organizational structure for the ASB Bank. It is likely that all the divisions always look for the proper functions in their human resource management (Anitha, 2014). These different divisions always focus on building the team spirit between the employees properly. The responsibility of the managers is to provide the employees with all the facilities and develop the skills in them that are very much needed. The divisional managers always play the role of coordinating all the efforts of the employees. Some of the posts that are present in the organization are the Managing Director, CEO, General Counsel, General Manager marketing, General Manager human resource, General Manager Finance and accounting, Distribution, Service programs, Training, Service Quality, Health Unit, Rax payments and other departments (Lunenburg, 2012).

The people belonging from different areas of the society have been targeted by ASB bank. They provide their services to all sorts of people in different settings. The primary target audience of ASB Bank is the personal banking customers whose age is between 25 to 49 years. The persons whose income is more than $40000 is their ‘quality middle market’. The people who are interested in their Home Loan facilities are also the target audiences of the bank. The secondary target audiences are the farmers who are involved in the dairy and sheep farms, producers of beef products, brokerage share traders, online customers and small to medium sized business owners (Armstrong et al., 2015).

• The country is politically stable.
• The production costs are reduced.
• The trade restrictions are low.
• The government is very supportive (Makos, 2015).

• The economy in New Zealand is stable.
• The market is very competitive (Hooley, Piercy & Nicoulaud, 2012).
• The market size of ASB Bank is bigger than its competitors.
• The government expenditures are under control.

• The social structures are stable as well.
• There are scopes of new markets.
• The cultural diversity is a big factor (Rice, 2015).

• The mobile technology is improving (Baden-Fuller & Haefliger, 2013).
• There are some technological problems faced as well.
• Some development risks have been noticed.

• The sustainability of business is quite stable.
• The impact of raw materials will have to be looked after.
• The recycling process should be taken up.

• The government regulations will have to be followed.
• The development costs are increasing (Newton, 2014).

Target Audience of ASB Bank

In this scenario regarding the organizational change, the changes are taking place in the technological changes in the company. ASB Bank is highly interested in innovating new procedures for the betterment of their services (Benn, Dunphy & Griffiths, 2014) They have taken up some new strategies for change within the organization. They are favoring the digital services to be introduced in their operations all the more. One of the most interesting things in the present day banking is the introduction of the digital disruption into their services and operations (Benn, Dunphy & Griffiths, 2014). 

It has been a common notion that the new digital tools are entering into the common business environment. Employees have the habit of working in one particular business environment. This is why it would be very important to develop the skills within them so they can upgrade their skills. The customers also will have to change their habit of dealing with the various financial services of the ASB Bank. All over the world, the banks are facing the situation where the FinTech start up businesses is providing the customers with the best products through several innovative services indeed (Chu, Lee & Chao, 2012). As customer satisfaction is considered to be one of the most interesting factors in providing the service (Benn, Dunphy & Griffiths, 2014). ASB bank will have to take care of several factors that will help the to achieve their objectives. Another important change that could be included in their services is the introduction of the Block chain. This is the technology that enhances the digital currency like Bitcoin. This could become a big issue in the digital payment system (Chu, Lee & Chao, 2012). The use of new technology could be a boon for ASB Bank but the big question of risk will still remain there as well. ASB bank is still facing some upheal problems to combat with the risks. The services and operations will become more equipped with digital technologies. This could be problematic for the rural customers as well. These problems will have to be kept in mind properly by the authority.

One of the major tools in portraying the drivers and resistances in bringing in the changes is the force field analysis. The two forces that are instrumental in this analysis are the driving forces and the restraining forces (Swanson & Creed, 2014). If the organization (ASB Bank) is bringing in the technological changes in their operations there are some forces that could be recognized as the driving forces. These forces help the organization to implement the desired changes as discussed. These driving forces are the:-

• Providing better and faster services to the customers
• Ability to work with several customers at a time due to the technological advancement
• The need for change is immense to cope up with the challenges in the business environment (Swanson & Creed, 2014).
• The new training procedures will help the employees to work more effectively
• The new policies will be better from many aspects and these policies will find out new ways for innovation
• The average age of the middle management is around 30 to 35 years. This is why their knowledge about technology is immense and they can drive the changes in the positive ways (Swanson & Creed, 2014)
• ASB Bank will be able to receive more feedbacks from their customers through online mode. This will boost up their confidence.
• The managers will be able to make more profits by providing effective services all over the world.
• They can recruit younger people that would be suitable for their dynamic approach to success in the organizational perspectives.

Changes in ASB Bank: Technological Innovation

• It has to be kept in mind that the low level management has not been productive and the employees are not much advanced technologically.
• Those employees have the fear of losing their position if this change takes place properly.
• This process will become too much automated. The employees might lose their jobs as well.
• The competence of the managers cannot be traced since the entire process will become based on technology (McQuivey, 2013).
• The policies would become very conservative.
• The power would become too much centralized indeed.
• The managers might lose their confidence in their working abilities because of too much dependence on the technology.
• Some communication gaps can occur as well among the employees.

The quality management system of ASB Bank has always looked on to increase the productivity (Awolusi, 2012). They have tried to care for the employees and share the details that are very important for them. They want to ensure that collaboration should be done among the employees so that they could get the best results from the perspective of organizational benefits. Their intention is to improve their performance in different levels. They always want to engage their employees in the quality improvement programs. In the last 12 months some important issues had been raised regarding the quality management of ASB Bank (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).They have began the collaborative programs between the managers and employees and provide them the necessary skills by which they could attain the organizational objectives. They have also began the process of connecting the efforts of the employees to their objective of improving their technological innovation (McQuivey, 2013) They are liable to make sure that their products and financial services can always be up-to-date in many cases. They can engage in the corporate communications platform that will provide the organization with more benefits (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). They are keen on providing a unique working environment in which the employees can work freely and all the innovative thoughts will be encouraged and creative aspects will be praised for better outcomes. Thus ASB Bank will be able to incorporate many new things into the organization properly to integrate with the objectives of the organization.

Conclusion

This paper can be concluded by saying that ASB Bank has been able to improve their performance by focusing largely on the technological innovation. They are likely to integrate into new functional areas that could cater to attaining of their organizational objectives. The employees will look to put in their best efforts to help the organization. They will also be able to judge the positive and negative sides of applying this change into the organization. Their external environment has been analyzed in this paper as well. This is why they will look to focus on their strengths to apply into their spheres. The quality management system of the organization has been discussed from various angles. The target market of the organization has been displayed to understand their intentions. The technological innovations will bring in better changes for the improvement of their organizations.

References

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Anitha, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International journal of productivity and performance management, 63(3), 308.

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.

Asb.co.nz. (2018). ASB Bank – Personal & Business Banking in New Zealand. ASB Bank. Retrieved 20 March 2018, from https://www.asb.co.nz/

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Benn, S., Dunphy, D., & Griffiths, A. (2014). Organizational change for corporate sustainability. Routledge.

Chu, P. Y., Lee, G. Y., & Chao, Y. (2012). Service quality, customer satisfaction, customer trust, and loyalty in an e-banking context. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal, 40(8), 1271-1283.

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