American Journal Of Industrial And Business -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The American Journal Of Industrial And Business? Answer: Introduction The current business scenario in every business sectors is challenging and competitive. Moreover, in the current era of the globalization, the strategies being inherited by the business organizations are much different that they had initiated in the past. In addition, some business sectors are more competitive in nature compared to others due to the presence of more players and other external factors. One of these intensely competitive sectors is the banking sector in Australia (Beatty and Liao, 2014). This is due to the reason that, Australia is having number of banking institutions currently operating including the big fours. Thus, the competition is intense, which further lead to the initiation of the various corporate strategies by the organizations. Westpac is one of the leading banking institutions from Australia with having their market presence in different locations around the world. Moreover, they are being considered as one of the leading banks among the big four of Australia (Westpac, 2018). Westpac is also having the history of being the oldest bank of Australia situated in 1851. In all these years, they have initiated different corporate and business approaches in order to effectively cater and operate in the market. This report will discuss about the strategic approach of Westpac through all these years along with identifying and evaluating the change in the approaches and strategies. The mission and vision statement of Westpac will also be discussed in this report. In the recent times, Westpac faced various criticisms in relation to their business policies and for the unethical business practices initiated by them. This report will discuss about the criticisms being faced by them in the recent time. Lastly, the opportunities and the challenges being faced by them in their business will be discussed in this report along with determining the organizational culture and leadership style being practiced by them. Vision statement of Westpac The vision statement of Westpac stated their aim of achieving the market leadership position in the coming years. Moreover, it is also being stated that, sustainable development is one of the key target areas and they want to be an environment responsive company in the market (Westpac, 2018). The interest of the employees is also being stated in the vision statement by discussing the importance of the effective human resource management for their employees. Thus, the vision statement of them covers all the basic aspects of their organization and it clearly states their future goals and objectives. Mission statement of Westpac The mission statement of Westpac discussed about the activities that they are currently driving. The statement states that, Westpac is having their market presence in different locations around the world with having millions of customers (Westpac, 2018). The diverse product portfolio of them is also being stated and discussed in their mission statement. Corporate strategies of Westpac Westpac has initiated different corporate strategies in different time according to the business need and requirements. However, they have mainly initiated the strategy of strategic relationship. Thus, in order to discuss about their corporate strategies, it is important to divide their approaches in different time frame. It will help to identify the changes in the corporate strategies being initiated by them. Corporate strategy in nineteenth century Westpac initiated their business journey in the nineteenth century and thus in the initial years of their operation, the objective of them is to increase their market coverage area in order to cater to more number of customers. Thus, the strategy that they initiated in their initial years is the network level strategy. Initiation of the network level strategy enables them to increase their operational areas along with enhancing their brand identify and equity (Drnevich and Croson, 2013). This is due to the reason that, the more will be the market coverage area of the company, the more will be the brand value and exposure. Thus, it is important for them to gain the required market presence in the initial time. Corporate strategy in twentieth century Twentieth century is more challenging for Westpac due to the reason that, during this time, the competition was rapidly increased along with origination of different organizational challenges. One of the key challenges being faced by them in this century is the economic downturn. This caused negative impact on their business operation. Thus, in order to cut off the challenges, they initiated the corporate level strategies (Zaefarian, Henneberg and Naude, 2013). Corporate level strategies include initiation of the strategic relationship with other business organizations in the market. This strategy also helped them to initiate the process of horizontal growth in the market. During this time, they went for acquisitions and mergers with similar players in the market. For instance, Westpac went on to acquire the commercial bank of Australia in 1982, acquiring the trust bank of New Zealand in 1996 and some other organizations. This helped them to cut off the competition in the market along with positioning them as the market leader. Corporate strategy in twenty first century This century is the most challenging for Westpac due to the reason that, more business organizations have entered the market along with the emergence of different external factors such as the advancement of the technologies. In accordance to this situation, Westpac has initiated the combination of different level strategies. One of the key strategies being initiated by them is the business level strategy (Ghezzi, 2013). This helped them to offer different products to different customers located in different locations around the world. Moreover, the current era is of globalization and thus, Westpac is having their market presence in different countries around the world. In accordance to that, the market requirement for them is also different. Thus, initiation of the business level strategy helped them to cater to the diversified requirement in the global market effectively. Another strategy being initiated by them is the corporate level strategy. This is due to the reason that, with time, the competition is rapidly increasing and it is important for Westpac to have favorable market presence in the market. This century saw the acquisition of BT financial group and merger of St. George Bank Limited by Westpac. Thus, initiation of different strategies helped to have holistic impact on their business operation. Criticisms faced by Westpac As discussed earlier, here are various criticisms being faced by Westpac in the recent time due to their unethical business practices. This report will discuss about the top two criticisms being faced by them. Supporting organizations with unethical approaches One of the biggest criticisms being faced by Westpac in the recent time is having the corporate client of them with having accusation of unethical business practices. Though, Westpac is not directly involved in initiation of the unethical practices, but the businesses with having unethical approaches are having the access of fund for them. This issue emerged when it was reported that, Westpac is funding the business activities of Wilmar (Schwarten, 2018). It is to be noted that, Wilmar is least environment friendly organization in the world. Moreover, they are also accused for land grabbing issue. Thus, funding their activities attracted negative impression for Westpac also. It caused depreciation in the goodwill and reputation for Westpac. However, they were prompt in managing the issue and tendered a public apology stating that, they will be concentrate on determining the customer profile and will not support or fund any unethical business activities of any of their clients. Breaching consumer protection repossession law Another criticism that they faced due to their subsidiary company Capital finance Australia limited. The issue is being emerged due to the reason that, capital finance failed to provide the customers who are unable to repay the loan or the defaulters with specific customer information about the customers (Asic.gov.au, 2018). Thus, it is a breach to the consumer protection repossession law. This is due to the fact that, according to this law, it is mandatory for the insurance organizations to maintain the specific information regarding what the borrowers are proposing to do. Due to this issue, they are being fined with USD 493, 000 under the national credit act. On the other hand, due to this breach, customers also faced the issue of not receiving the information regarding the less time available to repay the loan. This caused generation of the negative word of mouth among their customers and also de-motivated the potential customers to avail their services. This is another major criticism being faced by Westpac in the recent time. In this case, they have initiated the process of contacting the affected customers and communicated the helpline in case of any customer queries. Environmental analysis of Westpac The previous sections discussed about the operational factors that are having negative impact on their business profile. However, in the current business scenario, there are various factors to be determined in terms of the internal environment of Westpac. SWOT analysis will be used to determine the opportunities and threats of them. SWOT analysis Strengths The brand value of Westpac is huge and enormous. It is beneficial for them to further penetrate in the existing market along with entering in the new market. The rich history associated with Westpac enhances the trustworthiness of them among the customers. Thus, this helps them to attract more customers compared to their competitors (Hasan, 2013). They are having their market presence in different locations around the world. Thus, the market coverage is more along with segregated customer segments. Weaknesses The recent issues being discussed in the previous sections are leading to negative word of mouth in the market. Majority of their competitors are having higher and more market presence than Westpac. Thus, they are trailing behind their competitors in terms of market coverage (Kopel and Lambertini, 2013). Risk involved with the providence of the banking facilities including attachment of huge capital as default. Opportunities Entering in more foreign countries will increase the market opportunity for them along with increase in the brand exposure. As discussed earlier, the horizontal growth strategies initiated by them is helping in cutting off the competition. Developing countries are still untapped for the banking sector and thus it is a huge opportunity for Westpac to tap these markets (Doss, 2013). Threats Threats of new entrants in the market will reduce the profitability of them (Frei, Mbachu and Phipps, 2013). Generation of negative word of mouth will further reduce their profitability. Increase in defaulters will increase the financial risk for them (Foley-Fisher and Guimaraes, 2013). Organizational culture of Westpac According to the information being available on their official website, Westpac maintains the inclusive workplace for their employees. One of the key characteristics being identified is the initiation of the diversity among the employees. They promote recruitment and selection of the employees from different social and cultural areas (Chrobot-Mason and Aramovich, 2013). This is having dual advantages for them including the enhancement of the social impression of the brand and generating diverse and different ideas from the employees. Moreover, they also maintain various initiatives such as ABLE, Asian Leadership Group, Brothers and Sisters Indigenous Group and FLEX (flexible work practices). All these initiatives are having distinctive utilities in the workplace. For instance, initiation of the FLEX enables the employees to have flexible work timing in their workplace (Shagvaliyeva and Yazdanifard, 2014). Employees are having the options of selecting their work timing at their convenience. It will eventually enhance the level of motivation of the employees. Along with these strategies, gender equality is also being promoted in the organization in order to have equal representation of the female employees. Leadership style of Westpac Gail Kelly, CEO of Westpac maintains charismatic and transformational style of leadership in the organization (Zhu et al., 2013). This is the reason behind the initiation of employee oriented initiatives in the organization. She maintains that, having the engaged and motivated employees in place is the key source of gaining competitive advantages for the organization. Thus, initiation of transformational leadership in the organization helps in having effective internal stakeholders to deal with the organizational challenges. Moreover, another advantage that is being gained from the initiation of the transformational leadership is the providence of effective customer service. This is due to the reason that, transformational style of leadership by their CEO enables the employees to have effective working environment in their workplace. Thus, having the effective working environment will motivate the employees to perform better. Moreover, having the motivated employees in place also enable to provide effective customer service. Thus, the more effective will be the customer service, the more will be the level of customer satisfaction and loyalty for the brand (Choudhary, Akhter and Zaheer, 2013). This is the key motive and objective for the leadership style being followed by their CEO. In addition, transformational leadership also includes gathering the feedback of the employees. Hence, involvement of feedback of the employees helps the organization to meet the requirement and expectation of the employees ef fectively. Conclusion From the above discussion, it can be concluded that, Westpac is having huge brand equity and value in the Australian market due to their rich history. This is one of the core competitive advantages being identified. In addition, the differences in the approaches of initiation of corporate strategies are being identified in this report. It is being identified that, the strategies of Westpac in their initial stage is quite different than what they are now following. It is also being concluded that, they are facing some ethical issues in the recent time and are facing negative impact for them. Moreover, the internal environment of them is also being analyzed and various threats and opportunities for them are being identified. 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