ANZs Organizational Structure

12 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………13 References……. 15 Executive summary In the wake of the 21st century, many changes began to unfold ranging from the global economic recession to technological advancement which had a profound impact in the banking sector. it made it necessary for the firms in the industry to restructure their business models to conform with the new conditions. With many studies now focusing on the organizational structure models, businesses have a variety of choices on the structures to adopt that best suits them. The change in the organizational structure is driven by various factors but the primary one is to manage the innovations that have been brought by the advancement in technology. Globally, the bank is considered one of the top 100 financial service institutions offering a wide range of retail banking services within Australia and in New Zealand.

The firm has a network of nearly 900 subsidiaries and closely 1500 ATMs serving millions of customers across the country and beyond. In terms of growth, ANZ has expanded its operations to the Asian-Pacific region, establishing the banking services in countries such as Hawaii and Indonesia. In the recent years, the financial firm has expanded its service portfolio ranging from consumer and mortgage financing to investment banking to wealth management and corporate banking for both medium-sized and large enterprises. ANZ’s establishment runs back in 1970 when Austria and New Zealand Bank Limited became mergers with the Scottish and English Banks and then merged with ANZ Bank which had been formed as a result of the merger between the Union Bank of Australia and Bank of Australia in 1951 (Merrett 1985).

In the past 10 years, ANZ Bank has introduced a plethora of changes in its organizational structure which are driven by the desire to cultivate networking, teamwork, and collaboration as well as developing innovations. In a move to enhance its credit facilities and meet the demands of the huge number of customers who needed credit, the financial institution established the position of a Chief Credit Officer in 2009 (ANZ Group Limited 2012). The structure further expanded when the position of the Private and Global Wealth Management Officer in 2012 with the responsibility to manage private banking globally. Another significant change in the firm’s organizational structure is the introduction of the Digital Transformation General Manager in 2017 charged with the responsibility to oversee the transformation of services in this digital era.

While ANZ adopts one of the best organizational structures that blends well with its growth prospects, the financial firm has had to grapple with the challenges of confusing and unclear roles which may create redundancy among workers. Furthermore, the changes were influenced by competition in that the competitors have accepted the technology changes and if the ANZ was left behind in these changes then it could have lost its customers to the competitors (Chuang & Hu 2015). Internal Network: In addition, networking was a driver to the changes since the bank had to build the relationship between its workers and this could be only enhanced by changing the organization structure. The bank needed to manage as well as integrate the significant parts of the business and thus it used the enterprise resource planning system which affected its organizational structure since some employees were required to work under new managers.

This made sure that there is a good network between employees of the bank which increased efficiency. The networking has enhanced ANZ distribution channels and thus it has optimized efficiency, improved customer services as well as reduced the operating costs. b) Collaboration and teamwork 1. Internal collaboration: Even if collaboration is not easy due to factors like competition and conflict among the groups, the company has to come up with a good organizational structure which will enhance coexistence (Cowan, Haralson & weekly 2009). The need for this collaboration was to enhance the banks operating and management activities. The start-up's divisions meant that the bank focused on the basic aspects of the relationship, process as well as outcome (Ibid 2009). For a decade now, businesses have realized that one person cannot address a challenge and challenges need to be faced by more than one person.

This contributed to change since the bank had to absorb the technology players in the system and they required having a clear line of authority (Alva 2018). In addition, the growth and competition in the banking sectors have made banks like ANZ to collaborate with other companies in order to enhance their customer growth and maximize profits (Chuang and Hu 2015). For any organization, teamwork is very essential in order to get things not only to be done but done correctly. Business challenges have been more complex in all sectors. For this reason, there has always been a constant need to bring more diverse minds to one table in order to do away with the traditional method of silos. The need to train and develop a new group of specialists is an essential reason that motivates the firm to make changes on its organizational structure.

In the wake of rapid technological transformations and the huge benefits associated with using it in the modern business world, ANZ realized that it needed IT specialists to sustain its operations and meet the demands of the highly dynamic local and international markets. The firm recognized the need to have a management structure that accommodates the new and necessary portfolio. The realization drove ANZ to identify a specialist who was conversant with technology and the dynamics created by the global trends. The company had to create the role of a digital transformation general manager with portfolios that were to be occupied by IT specialist and experts to replace formerly chief strategy officer in Dimension Data department that had become ineffective in the cloud business (Flinders, 2016).

For a company to adopt an innovation and stay in the business it must ensure that the environment is conducive. When innovating, the business must make sure that both the traditional method and the new method can co-exist to manage the existing business and develop new innovations. To manage the existing business and develop innovation the company has to make sure that its organizational structure supports it and if the advantages of developing a new innovation supersede the disadvantages then the management has to consider restructuring the organizational structure. This will make sure that the new innovation is under different management from the existing business so that both do not overlap each other which may lead to a loss. The main reason why businesses tend to avoid change is that they do not want to take the risk with the changes as the changes might not yield the anticipated outcome.

Conclusion For the last decade, businesses have been highly affected by dynamic changes that are taking place in the business world. There are many drives that lead to a business change and especially organizational structure change. Networking and empowerment are a major drive since the businesses need to get connected and empower the customers in that the customers take control of their business transactions. The changes in technology in the banking sector for instance e-banking have brought the need for the customer to control their bank transactions which have helped to empower them. Furthermore, a business has encouraged collaboration and teamwork in order to enhance productivity. worldfinance. com/banking/how-leading- banks-are-adapting-to-a-constantly-evolving-financial-sector> [Accessed 12 May 2018] Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ).