Analysis of Strategic Planning & Change Management at Barclays PLC

This report provides a critical evaluation of Barclays PLC's strategic planning process, business environment, and the impact of its purpose, mission, and vision. It examines William F. Glueck's model of strategic management and Kotter's change model in the context of Barclays' strategies. The rep...Read More

The Theory behind
the Strategy

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Strategic planning and change management helps business firms to face market changes
and bud future diction. Barclays PLC is British multinational universal bank which has
international headquarters in London, England. The bank was founded in the year 1690 and
currently operates in two divisions Barclays international and Barclays UK (Our history, 2021).
This report involves captious evaluation of strategic planning process, business environment by
impact of purpose, mission and vision on strategic planning. Kotter's change model in
determining strategy, KPI, change and risk strategies used at the bank are critically evaluated in
this report.
MAIN BODY
Strategy is defined as a united, encompassing and integrated plan created to assure that
the main objectives of the company are attained (Evans,, 2019). The strategy of Barclays is
consumer-centric, the company keeps the consumers and clients at the centre of decision making
(Our strategy, 2021). Barclays is able to provides clear vision of the future and helps unify
workforce to attain long-term objectives by building suitable strategy.
William F. Glueck's model of strategic management
The first phase of the model is strategic management elements. In this phase the mission,
vision, goals and values of the company are determined. Barclays releases yearly mission
statement and business objectives and has created consumer centric values. The next phase
involves analysing and diagnosing. This phase involves analysis of business environment and
identifying threats and opportunities. Barclays conducts external environment analysis to
determine threats and opportunities in the banking sector. The third phase of the model looks at
various alternatives to determine the most suitable strategy (Stephens and Martin,2019). Barclays
examines every course of action before adopting specific business strategy to ensure that most
beneficial business strategy is developed. This fourth phase of the model is about aligning plans,
policies, resources structure and management style with business strategy. Barclays ensures that
every aspect of the company is aligned with business strategy for successful execution. This final
stage of the model is evaluation in which includes ensuring that the strategy is implemented
effectively. Barclays creates high perfuming teams with experienced leaders to ensure successful
implementation of business strategies.
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The merits of strategic planning process of Barclays are that it helps the company to
align organizational resources with business strategy and supports successful implementation of
strategy through construction of clear mission, vision and values which unify of the workforce.
The demerit of strategic planning process of Barclays is that it is a time taking process. This can
negatively affect the final strategy of the company as the continuous changes in external
environment can reduce the effectiveness of the final strategy created after long time period
(Hamann and Schiemann, 2021).
Barclays has created easy to understand mission, vision and purpose. The purpose of
Barclays is to “deploy financier to support people and businesses”. The vision of the company is
to “to achieve growth in time by diversifying its business base”. The mission of Barclays is to
“create opportunities for client’s colleagues and society to rise” (Barclays Mission statement,
2021).
It is critically evaluated that strategic plan of Barclays to enable continuous digitization
of the company was elevated by distinct defined mission, vision and purpose of the firm. A
specific example at Barclays in which the clearly defunded mission, vision and purpose of the
company supported the process of setting strategy is the corporate strategy of enabling
continuous digitization. It involved transforming the company through digital technology such as
machine learning (Future forward: making sense of Industry 4.0, 2020). The purpose of the
company helped the firm utilize digitisation efforts to facilitate financial growth. The vision and
mission of the firm helped build a digitization strategy which contributes to growth of Major
stakeholders such as clients, society and employees.
Implementation of Brexit and UK's departure from EU is the political factor affecting
Barclays. The response of Barclays to Brexit is increasing backing in UK and changing
organizational structure to succeed in UK and Europe after Brexit (Preparing for Brexit, 2021).
Low economic growth caused by pandemic is the economic factor affecting the banking sector.
Barclays is dealing with this economic factor by launching 100 million community aid package
(Barclays' £100m COVID-19 Community Aid Package, 2021). Social trend of increase in digital
transactions and online is the social factor affecting banking enterprises in UK. Barclays has
developed strategy to enable continuous digitization in response to this factor. Introduction of
cryptocurrency and its rise in popularity is the technological factor affecting banking firms all
over the world. Barclays has banned cryptocurrency transactions through debit and credit cards
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in response to rising popularity if cryptocurrency (Barclays’ Binance ban: Why does it matter?,
2021). Consumer demand to enhance sustainability is an environmental factor which has
influenced banks to take steps towards environmental benefit. Barclays has implemented various
sustainability CSR activities to make positive impact on the environment such as 3 years plan to
facilitate economic growth at Kilmarnock, Scotland (Barclays unveils economic growth plan for
Kilmarnock, 2019). Evolving regulatory requirements for banks to deal with digital fraud affects
Barclays. The respective bank has responded to this by complying with various digital
regulations such as GDPR and Data Protection Act, 2018.
The long-standing history of Barclays bank dating back 300 years is a strength of the
company while the weakens of the company is controversies related to the bank such as violation
of international money laundering laws in 2009. Barclays can seek growth opportunities offered
by emerging markets while the fierce competition in UK and international markets from rivals
such as HSBC, UBS, RBS, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan and Chase is threat to growth of
Barclays (Barclays competitors, 2021).
There are several reasons which imitate change in a business firms. Organizational
change helps business firms face threats and exploit opportunities. Some of the common change
drivers are introduction of new technology, performance gap, crisis in the company and reaction
to external and internal pressure (Blanco-Portela and et. al., 2017).
The first step of Kotter's change management model is to create a sense of urgency in
which Barclays highlights potential threats and opportunities to build urgency in the
organization. This step helps the company gain employee views to build an effective strategy. In
the second step, Barclays builds a powerful change coalition to successfully implement change
process. The respective bank is able to create an effective strategy with involvement of strong
leaders. The third step involves creation of strategic vision for the change. This vision guides the
team to build strategy aimed at accomplishing the vision in specific time. In the fourth step,
Barclays communicates the vision for change to team members in a transparent and honest
manner. This helps the firm gain employee feedback and encourage them to participate in change
process and construction of business strategy. The fifth step of the model involves eliminating
obstacles. In this step, Barclays ensures that organizational structure, resources, culture and
policies are aligned with strategic vision to eliminate obstacles in change process. It encourages
employees to take action in supporting strategy formation. In the sixth step, Barclays divides
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long-term targets of change into short-term targets which can be achieved easily. This increases
employee motivation to participate in strategy formation and give their ideas to improve business
strategy (Jones-Schenk, 2017). In this way, the sixth step facilitates better strategy formation.
The seventh step focuses on consolidation of success. Barclays analyses the positive and
negative aspects of change to duplicate success stories and improve experiences of individual
employees. The respective company is able to determine strategy with this step as it helps
enhance employee satisfaction during change implementation. This inspires employees to
actively participates in strategy formation process and provide their ideas to reduce barrier in
effective strategy formation and implementation. This is the final stage of change management
model in which Barclays focuses on making the change permanent by ensuring that the change
becomes integral part of the company culture. This last step helps institutionalize the culture of
building an effective strategy in a systematic manner.
The advantage of using Kotter’s change management model to determine strategy is that
it helps the company unite the workforce in process of strategy determination so that the strategy
which benefits every stakeholder is created by the firm. The disadvantage of using Kotter’s
change management model for determining strategy is that it involves following steps one by one
which increases the complexity of strategy formation process (Kumar and et. al., 2018).
The strategy used by Barclays to manage risk at local level is risk transference. In this
strategy the risk is transferred to an external party which assumes the risk on behalf of the
organization. The advantage of this strategy is that it helps cover financial losses to the extent of
policy coverage. The disadvantage of this strategy is that it creates additional expense for the
company. The strategy used by Barclays to manage change at local level is to maximise
transparency. Under this strategy, change is implemented in phases and senior level managers
communicate with their subordinates in a transparent manner. The advantage of maintaining
transparent communication during change implementation is that it increases employee trust
(Vaishnavi, Suresh and Dutta, 2019). The disadvantage of using the strategy of transparent
communication during change implementation is that it can lead to leak of confidential
information at the organization.
Barclays has adopted the strategy of risk avoidance to handle risk at national level. This
involves taking steps to eliminate occurrence of risk. The advantage of this strategy is that it
instils confidence in the organization. The disadvantage of this strategy is that slows business
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operations as employees and business partners adhere to the rules implemented to eliminate the
risks which reduces speed of various activities. The strategy used by Barclays to manage change
at national level is to redefine organizational and cultural values. Barclays changes the cultural
values of the firm at national level so that employees are influenced to comply with cultural
values and accept cultural changes. The advantage of this change management strategy is that it
persuades employees to accept organizational change without high resistance. The disadvantage
of managing change with this strategy is that it is a very slow process of implementing change.
This risk management strategy used by Barclays at an international level is risk reduction
which involves taking staggered approach to mitigate potential losses. The advantage of this
strategy is that it reduces business liability while the disadvantage is that it requires more
complex approach to investing (Darwish, Gomes and Ahmed, 2021). Barclays has adopted the
strategy of recruiting frontline champion of change to manage change at an international level.
This strategy involves developing change champions who work on ground level in various
international markets and helps the company implement organization wide change. The
advantage of this strategy is that it helps attain success in implementing change. The
disadvantage of this change management strategy is that the company losses some amount of
control over domestic markets as change champions lead outlets of the firm.
Net promoter score is KPI used by Barclays which views how willing consumers are to
recommend product and services (Performance measures, 2021). The advantage of this KPI is
that it helps measure likelihood of repeat business while the disadvantage is that it lacks context
behind the score. This KPI helps Barclays deal with internal and external change by providing
the company information on views of consumers on various business activities. The merit of this
factor is that it helps the respective firm implement changes which will benefit consumers. The
demerit is that it leads to ignorance of other external forces impacted the company such as
suppliers and rivals.
Employee engagement is KPI used at Barclays to manage change effectively. Employee
engagement is a KPI which looks at level engagement of each employee in workplace activities.
The advantage of this KPI is that it helps the firm determine the level of employee commitment.
The disadvantage of this KPI is that it does not provide the reason behind low employee
engagement (Gilmore, 2021). This KPI is used at the respective company to handle change
internally and external as it helps determine employee involvement in the change implementation
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process. The merit of using this KPI to deal with change is that it helps the company take action
to enhance employee participation in change and institutionalize change. The demerit of using
this KPI is that high employee engagement is not always related to high employee satisfaction
and actions taken on the basis of only employee engagement can negatively impact change
management.
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CONCLUSION
From the above essay it is concluded that creation of an effective strategy plays an
important role in taking the organization on the path of success. William’s strategic planning
model can be used to build an effective strategy by following 5 steps but it has the disadvantage
of being time consuming. Presence of well-defined vision, mission and purpose supports
strategic planning by guiding the company to build strategy which helps in attainment of mission
vision and purpose. SWOT and PESTEL are useful analytical tools which help evaluate external
environment of a company. Kotter’s change management model helps determine effective
strategy for the firm and different strategies are adopted by enterprises to handle risk and change
at local, national and international level. KPI such as colleague engagement and net promoter
scores support change management at firms.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Blanco-Portela and et. Al., 2017. Towards the integration of sustainability in Higher Education
Institutions: A review of drivers of and barriers to organisational change and their
comparison against those found of companies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 166.
pp.563-578.
Darwish, S., Gomes, A. M. and Ahmed, U., 2021. Risk Management Strategies and Impact on
Sustainability: The Disruptive Effect of Covid 19. Academy of Strategic Management
Journal, 20. pp.1-19.
Evans, N., 2019. Strategic management for tourism, hospitality and events. Routledge.
Gilmore, D., 2021. Implementing a coaching model for the development of online
teachers. International Journal for Academic Development, 26(2). pp.121-133.
Hamann, P. M. and Schiemann, F., 2021. Organizational performance as a set of four
dimensions: An empirical analysis. Journal of Business Research, 127.. pp.45-65.
Jones-Schenk, J., 2017. Fostering personal power during change. The Journal of Continuing
Education in Nursing, 48(8). pp.343-344.
Kumar and et. al., 2018. Interprofessional education and practice guide No. 9: Sustaining
interprofessional simulation using change management principles. Journal of
interprofessional care, 32(6). pp.771-778.
Stephens, E. and Martin, B., 2019. Business Policy and Strategic Management. Scientific e-
Resources.
Vaishnavi, V., Suresh, M. and Dutta, P., 2019. A study on the influence of factors associated
with organizational readiness for change in healthcare organizations using
TISM. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Online
Our strategy, 2021. [Online] Available through https://home.barclays/who-we-are/our-strategy/
Our history, 2021. [Online] Available through https://home.barclays/who-we-are/our-history/
Barclays' £100m COVID-19 Community Aid Package, 2021. [Online] Available through
https://home.barclays/society/investing-in-our-communities/barclays-covid-19-community-aid-
package/
Preparing for Brexit, 2021. [Online] Available through https://home.barclays/who-we-are/our-
strategy/preparing-for-brexit/
Barclays unveils economic growth plan for Kilmarnock, 2019. [Online] Available through
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-48581159
Barclays’ Binance ban: Why does it matter?, 2021. [Online] Available through
https://www.verdict.co.uk/barclays-binance/
Performance measures, 2021. [Online] Available through https://home.barclays/who-we-are/our-
strategy/performance-measures/
Barclays Mission statement, 2021. [Online] Available through
https://mission-statement.com/barclays-mission/
Barclays competitors, 2021. [Online] Available through https://craft.co/barclays/competitors
Future forward: making sense of Industry 4.0, 2020. [Online] Available through
https://home.barclays/news/2020/05/making-sense-of-Industry-4-0/
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