Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Its Application within the Banking Industry: A Case Study of Westpac Banking Corporation

Running head: Strategic Information System for Business and Enterprise 1
STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR BUSINESS AND ENTERPRISE
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Strategic Information System for Business and Enterprise 2
Introduction
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) remains digital process management system that
integrates various information system for better business operation. A more understanding of the
ERP rests on the business processes that are enhanced by the system. One industry with high
ERP application or implementation is the banking industry due to the high volume of sensitive
data. A close a look at the banking industry in Australia, Westpac Banking Corporation remains
one of the top four banks within the industry. Some of the banking processes evidenced within
the Westpac are customer service management, new customer acquisition processes, accounting
processes, online banking operation and insurance management processes. Banking business
requirement is technical with high specifications and these are part of ERP selection. Many
software vendors are available with Oracle being one of the considered software vendor able to
supply the software that meets the banking requirement. The software has high security features,
faster operational services, high software integrations and scalability. These features make the
Oracle ERP software the best that can be adopted by the Westpac Bank to reduce the integration
issues that has been affecting the bank. The following paper explores enterprise resource
planning (ERP) and its application within the banking industry with a focus on Westpac Banking
Corporation.
Overview of Westpac Banking Corporation
Westpac Banking Corporation is the second largest bank in Australia and one of the
largest within the regions. The bank offer variety of banking services that include customer
service, online banking, insurance services and lending services among other services. The
business has various operational processes that enable the company’s service provision. Westpac

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Banking Corporation is one of the fast expanding banks within the Australia banking industry
(Westpac Banking Corporation 2018). Optimization of the operational processes is important for
continuous excellent service provision that forms the main goal of the bank. The Westpac
Banking Corporation has many different departments that include human resource management,
banking department, operational department, lending, and insurance department, international
business department and marketing department. The numerous departments that the business has
need to function efficiently and coherently without slow or inefficiencies and this can be enabled
using enterprise resource planning system. The business has been using other ERP software such
as SAP that has some security and operational processes (Keating, Quazi, Kriz & Coltman 2008,
pp 175–79).
1. Define Business processes
ERP has been in the forefront in the performance of banking operational processes. Some
of the processes that the ERP need to perform include customer relationship management,
Consumer and commercial lending, Account servicing processes, customer acquisition services
and insurance management. Firstly, banking processes that the Westpac banking corporation
majorly is customer relationship management that include service offered to the customer
through banking hall and online banking platform (Malakooti 2013). The online business
platform entails self-banking services that are also integrated into the ERP system that the bank
uses. Secondly, consumer and commercial lending is another business process that the ERP will
serve and mainly consist of offering loans to the customer through the ERP system with the
capability to monitor the compliance or risk (Pegasystems 2018). Thirdly, account service
processes entail payment management system that also reconciles various accounting

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transactions and customer support. Fourthly, customers acquisition processes are a business
process that involves registration new customer into the system and marketing drives to attract
customers. Lastly, insurance management as part of business processes involves the provision of
insurance service to customers and some of the processes include risk, fraud, and compliance
management processes (Kirchmer 2017, pp. 1–28).
2. Develop business requirements
The banking business requirement in the current business setting entails digitalization of
business processes to increase efficiencies, integrate financial system, banking intelligence
monitoring system and increase profitability. Firstly, banking sector digitalization process has
been the trend with more banks integrates its processes through enterprise resource planning
system for smooth operations (Shaul & Tauber 2013, pp 4). Secondly, integration of financial
system comes with benefits that include faster financial assistance and flexibility of the system
that enables transaction from any point globally. Modern banking system integrates both in-
house banking system and the online banking system that enables faster transaction and
operation management. Thirdly, automated intelligence system is another area the bank requires
ERP for monitoring of risk, fraud, and compliance and this also come along with data enabling
reporting. Lastly, the business system functions to reduce the operation cost and increase the
profitability. The development of the ERP into the banking business enable reduction of
operational cost and time taken to process customer transactions and this reduces the cost hence
the whole process become profitable to the business (O'Brien 2011, p. 324).