Commonwealth Bank of Australia's Organizational Problems and Solutions

This report examines the challenges faced by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and proposes solutions to mitigate these issues. The bank has been facing problems such as organizational structure, processes, and market size, which have impacted its performance. The report highlights the importance of effective management information systems in addressing these challenges. It also emphasizes the need for CBA to adopt a more customer-centric approach to better serve its customers.

Running head: COMMONWEALTH BANK OF AUSTRALIA
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Part 1............................................................................................................................................3
Commonwealth Bank of Australia..............................................................................................3
Organizational Structure..........................................................................................................3
Organizational Problems.........................................................................................................4
Strategies..................................................................................................................................6
System Acquisition Method....................................................................................................8
Control Problems in the System..............................................................................................9
Process Designing..................................................................................................................10
Part 2..........................................................................................................................................10
Accounting Software Packages.............................................................................................10
Market Size............................................................................................................................11
Market Leaders and Competitors...........................................................................................11
Recommendations..................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

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Introduction
The type of software of implementation that records and operates various transactions
related to accounting is known as accounting software. This particular software works for
various effective modules such as the accounting records, accounts payable, payroll, trial balance
and accounting receivable (Abraham and Dao 2017). The accounting software does its work just
like an integrated accounting information system. It is generally spread by the organization or is
bought from a specific third party vendor. The spreading is done by organization that plans to get
the accounting software. Sometimes, it may be a mixture of both the cases with specific
alterations. The accounting software will be obtained from everywhere simultaneously, or will be
online based or will be desktop based (Appelbaum et al. 2017). The important criteria to utilize
this accounting software are that the system that is accessing the software must be authorized and
enabled with a distinct Internet connection. However, there is a huge difference in budget and
trouble in both the cases.
The following literature review outlines a specific discussion on the recognized bank of
Australia, namely the Commonwealth Bank of Australia or CBA. This literature review provides
the basic understanding on the organizational structure of the bank, including several
organizational problems in the bank system for example the inefficiencies and errors with
specific details, diagrams and graphs (Peppard and Ward 2016). The review also gives the basic
system flowchart of the shares and sales of Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The literature
review further covers the definition of accounting software, the type of software used by
Commonwealth Bank, the market leaders, the market size and the several core competitors of the

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bank. Proper recommendations are given to help the bank in recovering its position (Nguyen,
Nguyen and Bosch 2017). The description of the report is given in the following paragraphs.
Discussion
Part 1
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
The very popular and recognized bank of Australia, namely the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia has several branches in Fiji, the United Kingdom, Asia and New Zealand. This bank
provides various financial services of finance department like retail banking, business banking,
educational banking, investment services, loan services and funds management
(Commbank.com.au, 2017). According to Australian Securities Exchange or ASE,
Commonwealth Bank of Australia is the best bank of Australia as of August 2015. This bank
was founded by the central government of Australia in the year 1911and was listed as one of the
top four banks in Australia and New Zealand. The rest three banks on that list were Westpac,
NAB or National Australian Bank and ANZ. Australian Stock Exchange listed Commonwealth
Bank of Australia in the year 1991 and it became completely privatized in the year 1996.
Structure of the Organization
Commonwealth Bank has a huge organizational structure. Since, the bank has many
managing bodies and employees working within it, the corporate structure is a large structure
(Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta 2016). The organizational structure contains both the corporate
and the management structures of the bank.

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Figure 1: Organizational Structure of CBA
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2017)
The above figure gives brief description about all the staffs and employees of
Commonwealth Bank of Australia. All the levels of management are mentioned in this diagram.
Problems in the Organization
Commonwealth Bank comes in the top four banks of Australia. Even then, there are some
organizational problems. They have faced many ups and downs in their business and turmoil in
the shares of the bank (Peppard and Ward 2016). The bank shares have gone down drastically
and the bank has faced losses. The primary reason for this problem is the vague and incorrect
strategies. The authority of the bank took various approaches to conquer the situation and to

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improvise the shares of the bank. Market has the tendency to modify itself constantly. The
approaches and the strategies taken the bank went wrong for these altering market trends
(Madhavaram and Hunt 2017). The bank has to deal with its customers. However, they were
unable to fulfill the requirements of the customers and the customers are unhappy with them. The
shares were constantly degrading and for that reason, loan services were disturbed. Customers,
demanding for huge amount loans were disappointed with the service. The other major reason
for the loss of the bank was the high interest rates (Peppard and Ward 2016). When the
customers will not be able to pay the bank back, it is evident that they will mitigate or even stop
taking loans from the bank.
Figure 2: Degradation in shares of CBA
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2017)

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The above figure clearly gives a pictorial view of the drastic change in the market shares
of Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Earlier, the shares of the bank were above 76 and that was
extremely good position. In the next fewer years, a massive change is seen in the shares. A sharp
degradation is noticed in the diagram, and the shares have gone down to 75.5 (Ismail and King
2014). The diagram defines that Commonwealth Bank is not efficient enough in keeping their
customers. The clients are afraid to take loans or invest money. Higher interest rates is another
reason for the lost interest of the customers. The next problem with this bank is the insufficient
employees in each branch. Commonwealth Bank is a popular ban. Therefore, it is evident that
many customers visit to the bank daily for their needs. The staffs present there to attend the
customers are not enough and the ones present there are not polite enough with them
(Madhavaram and Hunt 2017). This is generating a negative impression within the minds of the
customers and thus they are avoiding the bank.
Strategies
Commonwealth Bank follows several strategies to return to their position. They aim on
basic four components. They are as follows:
a) Customers: The main focus is given on the customers of the bank (Li, Cui and Lu
2017). As the customers are ones who are responsible for the success of the bank, so it is the
duty of the bank to fulfill the necessity of the customers.
b) Technology: The second important strategy is to focus on the technology used in the
bank. Modern technologies are acquiring the world day by day (Hallikainen et al. 2017).
Therefore, the bank system should alter their systems with the brand new technologies to obtain
more productivity.

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c) Strength: The third strategy of CBA is to focus on their strength. Teamwork is the
strength of CBA (Cassidy 2016). All the employees and the staff members work together as a big
team to overcome the problems in the organization.
d) Productivity: The last strategy of Commonwealth Bank of Australia is to aim on their
productivity (Galliers and Leidner 2014). The managers check the records periodically to
observe the productivity on the bank and the workers.
Sales
Customers 40%
Technology 20%
Strength 15%
Productivity 25%
Figure 3: Four Strategies of CBA
(Source: Created by the Author in Ms-Word)
The above pie chart shows the percentages of the four specific strategies of
Commonwealth Bank. Customers have the maximum weight age as they are the most important
components. They are carrying 40%. Next comes the technology (Ismail and King 2014). It is
carrying 20% weight age. The third component is the strength. It has the lowest weight age in

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comparison with others. It is carrying only 15% and the last strategy is the productivity. It is
carrying 25%.
System Acquisition Method
Commonwealth Bank of Australia normally follows the fundamental Enterprise Resource
Planning or ERP model for their system acquisition model. The procedure through which an
organization controls and mixes the important parts of the business is known as Enterprise
Resource Planning (Li, Cui and Lu 2017). This method is utilized by almost all organizations for
attaining their organizational goals and objectives. Commonwealth Bank of Australia utilizes the
elementary Systems, Applications and Products model or the SAP model. This particular model
helps the organizational technical team to achieve advantages (Galliers and Leidner 2014). It also
helps to gain proficiency in the software and programs of the organization that will help to
execute the SAP modules. The next benefit of SAP model is that it is extremely scalable and
flexible. It integrates easily with all modules in the business and is also very cost effective.
Although the initial investment of SAP is a bit high but the maintenance cost is extremely low in
SAP. Commonwealth Bank of Australia has faced all the organizational problems due to the
incorrect strategies followed by them (Hallikainen et al. 2017). The module of SAP is renewed
and updated so that the result is good and the bank gets back its position in the share market.

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Figure 4: Flowchart of Systems of CBA
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2017)
The above figure is the pictorial view of the procedures of the CBA. It provides a
flowchart showing all the processes of the bank. The bank provides various functions like credit
card service, general service, personal success, e-banking and deposit services (Cassidy 2016).
Feedbacks are taken from the customers and necessary actions ar taken based on that.
Control Problems in the System
The issues faced by Commonwealth Bank have generated several alterations in the shares
of the bank. The development of any bank depends on the customers, accounting department,

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marketing department and the shareholders of that particular bank. These problems are affecting
the brand name of the Commonwealth Bank and this is not at all good for their business.
Process Designing
Customers should get involved in the organization. This is extremely needed to maintain
the workforce and the inclusion of the employees. The bank deals with customers (McKnight et
al. 2017). When the customers will reduce to come to the bank, it is evident that the employees
will lose interest to work. The principal necessity for CBA is the process of service. The
structure of the organization should have been modified periodically to match with the modern
technologies and trends in the market (Coviello and Tanev 2017). Moreover, the bank employees
should be hired more.
Customer Relationship Management
This is the most important aspect for all organizations especially for a bank. The first and
the foremost duty of a bank are to serve to their customers with respect, honesty and politeness
(Kavanagh and Johnson 2017). Customer Relationship Management is the feature that allows the
bank to maintain a good relation with its customers so that the customers are completely satisfied
with their service (Appelbaum et al. 2017). CBA is not maintaining the customer relationship
management at all and they will have to improve it.
Part 2
Accounting Software Packages
The challenges faced by Commonwealth Bank can be mitigated by the implementation of
a new accounting software package in their business. Currently, they are utilizing the Business to
Consumers or B2C software package (Hatton et al. 2017). There are several benefits of B2C

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software package like mitigating of competition gap, cost effective, flexible, and scalable and no
training required (Hallikainen et al. 2017).
Market Size
Figure 5: CBA Margin
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2017)
The above graph describes the massive downfall in the shares of CBA. Earlier the shares
were above 283, but it has gone down to 262.
Competitors and Market Leaders
There are several competitors of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The core
competitors include the ANZ, NAB, Westpac, ASB, St. George Bank, Bank West and Kiwi
Bank. All these banks are from Australia and New Zealand.

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Figure 6: Competitors of CBA
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2017)
The above pie chart shows the core competitors of CBA with relative percentage of
shares all over. The graph shows that Commonwealth is getting the maximum number of shares
and is winning the competition. 20% of the shares are acquired by CBA (Cassidy 2016). It is
closely by ANZ with 16% shares and NAB with 13% shares. In spite of having several
organization problems, CBA can still be claimed as the market leader.
Recommendations
The problems of CBA can be mitigated by certain recommendations. The major problem
is the high interest rates. The shareholders should look into the matter as soon as possible and
find out possible measures. The second problem is that people are losing interest from CBA. The
reason for this is the degradation in the bank shares. The authority should check the problem and
solve it as soon as possible. The third problem is the insufficient employees. It is highly
recommended that the bank should recruit more employees to solve this problem. Lack of CRM

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is another major problem in CBA. The employees should be trained properly for behaving with
the customers. These recommendations will be helpful for CBA to return to its position.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above report it can be concluded that, CBA is suffering from various
problems in its business. The erroneous strategies are the major reasons for these problems.
However, they are trying to sort out the problems. The above literature review provides a brief
description about the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The literature review covers the
organizational structure, the organizational problems and processes of the bank. It further
outlines the market size, market leaders and competitors of CBA. Proper recommendations are
given in the review to overcome the challenges.

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References
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Cassidy, A., 2016. A practical guide to information systems strategic planning. CRC press.
Commbank.com.au. (2017). Personal banking including accounts, credit cards and home loans -
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Peppard, J. and Ward, J., 2016. The strategic management of information systems: Building a
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